Suggestions:

• Faceless Butcher - spot removal Meren style when you have a sac-outlet ready. sac the butcher in response to the ETB-effect and the exiled creatures stays away.
• Tombstone Stairwell for lots of tokens and counters for Meren.
• Eldrazi Monument. Fun with Living Plane or any other load of creatures.

How does this deck deal with ETB effects from creatures and so forth, or would you sideboard a torpor orb?

MordMetal - Sorry for the slow reply!

My first answer to your question is simply - ETB effects from creatures have not been a problem for me in the first place, and thus have not required a solution. I suspect this is because decks which rely heavily on ETB creatures are generally either (a) more casual builds and simply are not fast/efficient enough to outrace our stax and/or wincons; or (b) are other stax lists with much the same gameplan (thus, it may actually be to our benefit to keep their creatures around). So, I haven't seen a need to more directly address that class of strategies.

Also, with stax/control especially it is important to pick your battles wisely (and by this I also mean, the cards you choose to include in your list). Putting in too many silver bullets against particular strategies inevitably reduces your flexibility, resilience, and answers against the rest of the field, so it is ONLY worth including silver bullets if they substantially increase your win probability against the decks you are actually facing in the wild. In my case, Torpor Orb isn't worth the slot because (a) it doesn't really gimp any of the decks I play against, and (b) there are other ways to solve that problem without resorting to Torpor Orb. For example: enemy ETB creatures don't matter if we win before they can be abused; or if our opponents don't have the resources to play them in the first place (through tax/stax); or even simply ignoring them, if they can only delay the game, but can't actually reduce our likelihood of winning.

More generally though, it's important to state that my build is designed to be used in a varied and diverse meta and one which does not see a bunch of ETB creatures of the must-be-dealt-with variety. Every meta is different and if yours has a bunch of ETB creatures (and they require answering) then something like Torpor Orb might be the right answer for you!!

I'm excited to try this deck out.

I was playing a staxhulk combo variant of Meren for the longest time until I recently switched to Nath. Staxhulk was crushing it until flash hulk/doomsday/storm decks appeared at the table. I switched to Nath and while the build is good.. i miss meren. I feel she has a lot more control potential.

Have you encountered many fast combo decks like i listed?

Also how do you feel about the inclusion of Razaketh the foul blooded?

Hello FireStorm4056, it's been a while! With the rest of the Dominaria cards spoiled, are there any cards in particular that jump out at you?

As an update to my last post, I used your deck to heavily inspire the one i'm running now. It's still in the trial period. Below is the link.. please tell me what you think!

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/17-04-18-meren-stax/?cb=1523962438

Yeah the problem is that one of the people in my play circle run brago and the etb creatures they ran beat when I was using this deck. Granted my piloting could improve but brago sort of overwhelmed me.

Here is a gameplay question for you, what do you search for first when you are trying to end the game. Like already have the table slowed down and you just want to focus on winning fast, what should I search for with Entomb or Demonic Tutor?

what's your thoughts on Chains of Mephistopheles? i play one in nekusar and i feel like it would fit very well in my meren deck as well, is it a monetary thing?

also on the subject of monetary, meren isnt one of my main decks, so i can't afford to get a living plane for it anytime soon, what's your thoughts on running Kormus Bell as a budget alternative? it does the same thing when you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out, and im just wondering if its worth running as a budget LP

@TheMaelstrom:

Re: Tutor Targets: Obviously it depends on the game, but I would say by far the most common searches are for two cards: Contamination and Living Plane. Contamination on its own locks out many decks, but devastates practically all cEDH lists if you manage to land it together with a Null Rod on the field. Because Null Rod is one of the very first cards you'll want to find in many games, there is a reasonable chance you have already tutored and played it. If you have, a subsequent Contamination usually just ends the game as your opponents have no way to play anything and would slowly die via combat damage. (Two big exceptions are mono-black opponents and mana dorks - however mono- is basically non-existent in CEDH, and mana dorks are usually already dead to wipes or Merciless Executioner effects). Living Plane is the other main tutor target, as it is 1/2 of the "winning" combo and the other 1/2 (Minister of Pain) is "findable" by a much greater number of tutors (i.e. Survival of the Fittest). So, the find-anything tutors are usually used to find the enchantment half of the combo.

@goblinguiderevealpls:

Chains of Mephistopheles is a lot like Carpet of Flowers - depending on your opponents' decks it is either outrageously powerful or completely useless. For me the reasoning on both cards is pretty simple - Carpet of Flowers is almost always "on" (very rarely is NO ONE at the table playing blue), while Chains of Mephistopheles is usually rather useless. It purely comes down to the fact that the particular decks in my meta just aren't shut down by it, so it's not worth including. It is always something to keep on the radar, however; stax is an extremely meta-dependent archetype and for many it will be a fantastic inclusion.

Re: Budget - Unless you are playing ~75% EDH or below, I wouldn't recommend the Kormus Bell route; it is just too difficult to assemble all three cards, and also quite vulnerable to disruption. The main issue is that non-creature cards are FAR more difficult to tutor for. Finding one non-creature card (for the existing two-card combo) is doable but even that can pose issues at times; having to find TWO non-creature cards is a very big ask and I just don't see it being very viable against competitive opponents. The combo would usually be slowly assembled and (likely) telegraphed, but there is an even bigger problem with it. Assuming Kormus Bell and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth are in play, and you cast a Minister of Pain, any of your opponents can instant-speed respond by killing Urborg with Strip Mine or Wasteland, so that when Minister resolves, you will end up just killing a bunch of your own swamps (maybe some of theirs, but most of their lands will survive and many of yours will not).

On a budget I would HIGHLY recommend going the Hulk Combo route as a wincon, and by far one of the best decklists available for this is roguelikedev's Honorbru Meren (see below). The wincon package is much cheaper (financially) and is at least as potent/competitive as my approach (if not moreso!!!)

Honorbru Meren (Finite Hulk)

Commander / EDH roguelikedev

SCORE: 4 | 8 COMMENTS | 1080 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

@goblinguiderevealpls:

Apologies, got a bit ahead of myself and submitted that comment early. A few corrections:

• You can choose not to Exploit with Minister of Pain, but your opponents can still Strip Mine or Wasteland AFTER you make that choice and while the -1/-1 ability is on the stack.
• Minister of Pain will NOT kill your own lands (apologies, I also play a more casual mass-destruction deck and got mixed up for a minute). However your opponents can still instant-speed remove Urborg and prevent Minister from actually wiping their landbase (though you might still get a swamp here or there)

I had a question about the choice of Dampening Matrix, doesnt that stop a couple of good cards in this deck though

@KittyFaye

Yes it does! However consider that it only stops a small handful of our own abilities... and most importantly, the abilities it stops are all toolbox abilities and none of them are crucial to our win condition. On the other hand, it completely stops a huge number of opponent combos and win conditions (i.e. Thrasios, Triton Hero, Aetherflux Reservoir). A little bit of anti-synergy is perfectly acceptable to stop an opponent from winning the game.

So what do you think of Plague Mare as a second Minister of Pain? Worth running both?

Bearmagus:

If you need a second Minister of Pain, it is definitely something to consider. In general I wouldn't think you would need more than one outside of special circumstances, such as lots of tokens in your meta, or your playgroup packing lots of grave hate (where need to ensure a backup win condition in case Minister of Pain gets exiled).

If you only pick one, I still think Minister of Pain is the better choice, because:

1. Minister of Pain automatically loops with itself (don't need a sac outlet, just need Meren)
2. Minister can be used as a free sac outlet for another key creature (i.e. Mindslicer or Reclamation Sage)
3. Single- is preferable to double-.

On the other hand, if combat is very relevant for you, or you have more sacrifice engines you need to feed, then Plague Mare might be a better meta call (though in general, imo the advantages of Minister outweigh those of Plague Mare)

After doing some play testing (in a 1v1 environment, sadly) I found Whisper, Blood Liturgist to be fairly powerful as a stax piece with Liliana's Specter or Mindslicer and Eternal Witness or Ophiomancer. The reason I say eternal witness is for situations where you have something like Smallpox in grave with two more black producing dorks or a piece of removal so the opp will, essentially, spend their turn doing nothing. In a 1v1 environment, the instant speed reanimation provided by whisper can cut the opponent off of top decking an answer for the lock you create, while also putting things into the grave that you want for the next turn, such as witness or rec sage.

Also, whats your take on Mana Web? obviously in conjunction with Winter Orb it can be very powerful, forcing the opponent into a position where they need to think "okay do i need to respond or do i want my next turn" while also acting as a psudo Arcane Laboratory against other midrange/control decks on its own, I'd love to hear your thoughts on both cards.

How are your extremely aggro matchups like krenko or arahbo? How would u deal withthe fast paced creature slamming.

Also how has grim flayer beenworking out for you? Ita so different from the rest of the deck

ok so i realized you only go online every now and then so let me shove all my questions in one post and hopefully you shallsee them one day XD ive been playing a variant similar tho this and to great success!!

firstly i have some card questions:

1. grim flayer: is he there fgor the extra beating or mainly for the Sylvan Library effect? also how oftendo u get delirium early. would you play it over a stax piece turn 2?

2. Midnight Reaper. am i missing something or is this a worse Grim Haruspex?

3. Necropotence iremmeber when ifirst saw this it was on the list, wha thas changed? did it not come out early enough or does the lifeloss really hurt.

4.Reanimate is amazing, but Animate Dead costs 2, what do u usually bring back? an edict brother?thats 5 mana tho.

1. Tangle Wire when would the proper time to bring it out be, before or after meren assuming we dont know the matchup

next question is some matchups.

, how do you dealwith very low to the ground aggro decks that spawn tokens like krenko or kari zev? what about the cat arahbo deck. theres alto of heavy aggro around here any tips? sometimes because of mass tokens stax pieces hurt me a ton.

thank you for any insight good sir and sorry for the triple post! i love the deck

Hi Vman!

First I want to stress that there is no universally "correct" stax deck - the best deck for my meta is likely TOTALLY different than the best deck for yours. My list may serve as a good starting point, but everyone will need to tune things individually for their own games!

At this point there is little to no creature aggro in my meta (which now consists of T1/T2 CEDH decks). I suspect this is true for many other CEDH metas, as creature aggro is generally not viable at the strongest of tables (it is possible to kill players with this strategy, but often difficult to actually win the game entirely). As a result, my answer to the question of, "How do you deal with low-to-the-ground token/aggro decks?" is simply, "I don't have to." Of course, some sweepers are still extremely useful for destroying generals, utility creatures, mana dorks, etc, so you'll see a few in my list (Toxic Deluge, Yahenni's Expertise)... BUT, I don't have to always be prepared to stop a token horde on T4... it's simply not an issue I need to deal with.

Of course, my experience is unique and totally different than many metas! If your opponents have more combat-focused decks, swap in tools to deal with them. Again, my deck is a good general starting point, but will need lots of tuning for any particular meta. You could consider repeatable sweepers like Pestilence/Crypt Rats, one-timers like Shrivel/Drown in Sorrow/Infest, more exotic workarounds like Living Death (these cards vary in competitive viability, but you get the picture)... what about Archfiend of Depravity? It's not a comp-viable card but if you are constantly facing down token swarm, it seems pretty darn good.

Note that if your opponents are more devoted to creature combat, that means they're LESS devoted to the things MY particular build is designed to stop - you may find that the slots for Trinisphere and Damping Sphere are better filled with creature removal; if that's true, then it's a change you should make!

Your more specific questions:

• Grim Flayer - He is basically a better Sensei's Divining Top in this deck. Being able to plow through your topdeck if you don't like your options is extremely useful when our goal is to stall out the game (Top is much worse - it costs you mana and you're stuck with what you see). The fact he beats and blocks well is nice, but he is played for the card sifting.
• Midnight Reaper - In some respects this is actually a BETTER Grim Haruspex - because it draws cards for itself when it dies (Grim Haruspex excludes itself). The life loss is unfortunate but the tradeoff for an extra card and more versatility (being OK with it dying) is the benefit here. However, remember that in more comp games, this isn't drawing us 30 cards, it's drawing like 2-4 (so the extra card off itself, bumping that number to 3-5, is actually a big deal). In more casual games with many more creatures on the battlefield and more draw triggers it's probably better to go with Haruspex to save yourself the life loss.
• Necropotence - I cut it as an experiment to see how the deck ran without it. Currently undecided on whether I will put it back. Obviously Necropotence is a card advantage powerhouse, but it's just awkward to actually play - the colors are rough to hit early on, and in an early hand, its timing often conflicts with the stax or interaction you need to be playing.
• Animate Dead and Regrowth - Currently testing these out to see if they help the deck's flexibility. Obviously, a lot of the recursion engine relies on Meren - and if there isn't an opening to play her or she dies, it can really create issues. This give us alternatives for making sure the effects in our graveyard remain accessible.
• Tangle Wire - Just play this ASAP. The earlier it hits, the harder it hits, and waiting until after Meren is almost surely too late. Remember, Tangle Wire is inherently asymmetric (taps the table for 4-3-2-1 and taps us for only 3-2-1-0 [or 2-1-0-0 once you consider you can tap Tangle Wire itself]). Additionally, we already play tons of mana dorks and mana rocks, so we are usually the least affected by the tap effect in the first place. If Tangle Wire hits too late, opponents have enough permanents to pay for it and can play around it - but a VERY early Tangle Wire (pre-Meren) can Time Walk the entire rest of the table 1-2 times, while we can often still play around it (due to so many dorks/rocks and asymmetric tap tax) and leap far ahead.

FireStorm4056 thank you so much for the in depth and very friendly insight. I am currently also running a low curve, heavy dork meren list very similar, and inspired by yours. this is deffinately the most unique and to me successful type of meren around! have a great day good sir.

looking foreward to any updates on the deck as i follow it =)

Hi! I've been working on a stax deck of my own using this list as a base, and everyone I know hates it! There's been a sort of power level arms race at my LGS, and I'm trying my best to keep things 'fair.' The decks arn't quite CEDH level yet save for a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds brostorm deck,Nekusar, the Mindrazer storm deck, and a tuned Derevi, Empyrial Tactician stax list. I have been experiencing some level of difficulty with Derevi and some Estrid, the Masked lists ramping faster than I can lay down my stax pieces/untapping and drawing cards through my stax pieces. Should I compensate with Pithing Needle and Sorcerous Spyglass to shut out their commanders? Usually at tables there are a lot of interactive decks and I quickly become the villain, so meren has a hard time sticking around. Should I add in ways to protect her like Cavern of Souls or Lightning Greaves, or should I just invest more into making my list more independent?

Heya FireStorm4056, ive been following this deck for a long time hoping that one day I could make my own version of the Minister of Pain and Living Plane combo in my EDH pod. After going to a recent GP, I was able to get some of the most expensive pieces and put my own version together. I would absolutely love it if you could have a look at Plane n' Pain and offer any advice.

Wondering what you think of Priest of Forgotten Gods for the deck. I'm contemplating trying it in mine.

FireStorm4056, are you still actively updating the deck? Has Autumn's Veil been given any consideration