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Meren of Clan Not-Dead

Commander / EDH* BG (Golgari) Multiplayer Reanimator

GS10

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Creature (38)

Land (35)

Artifact (6)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Sorcery (10)

Enchantment (6)

Instant (3)

Meren of Clan Nel Toth was my first real EDH deck. "Real" because I started out with a Glissa, the Traitor deck which relied on modular artifacts, proliferate and sac outlets to make huge creatures, and had a bit of a Deathtouch/Morbid subtheme. Flavourwise, I loved the deck, but it was an awfully bad list. I first bought Meren thinking I'd use the cards to upgrade Glissa, but I understood instantly that she is insanely powerful and much better than Glissa would ever be. Since then I've been in love with the deck!

Meren Deck Tech

To me, Meren is the queen of all reanimator generals. Yes there are lots of strong reanimator generals, but I don't think any of them is as strong as Meren once she gets going. The fact that you demand multiple exile effects to deal with all the menaces you run to end the game, are usually strong enough to make her win long game. The problem is Meren doesn't deal brilliantly with strong and fast aggressors, nor any tipe of anti-graveyard shenanigans. My deck is far from perfect, and I am certain that I need a whole lot of improvement to make it half competitive but it's still my most powerful deck once it gets going (that's the tricky part!).

I keep repeating myself. "Once it gets going" because Meren is capable of broken things, but you won't win in a multiplayer game just recurring Spore Frogs or Sakura-Tribe Elders. You need to get to 5 or 6 mana usually, and get a few sacrifices with Meren alive to make her really tick. By then, you are assured to find something to fetch your win cons to hand or graveyard and from there to the battlefield in no time. If no one exiles them, they will die and come back every time you wish. And even if they exile them, you will have multiple ways to sac them and get them in the graveyard either way. So, she is not straight out broken once she hits the battlefield, but the longer she is there, the crazier things will get and more likely she is to win.

I usually keep myself from attacking until I get the game on a lock. Attacks encourage enemies and make me risk my board presence and sometimes, even if I can get back what I lost, the tempo loss alone is enough for the deck to lose it's edge. As I said, she doesn't deal well with fast aggressors, and for that reason is wise to keep a low profile until she is in a position from where she can start controlling the game. So, how do I lock the game? I look to combine some of the following cards:

  • Butcher of Malakir, Dictate of Erebos (you can make a case for Grave Pact but I still didn't feel it was so important to have 3 of these) - These effects make me have much more advantage when I sac creatures. Even though by the time I usually play them, Meren actually had already got a few Experience Counters, I want some of my creatures to die, so I can bring them back for new ETB Triggers.

  • Archfiend of Depravity - Besides its awesome flavour text, it brings inevitability to the table. Combined with the previous, it is usually enough to keep my opponents from having creatures while I flood the board at least for a couple of turns. And even if they disrupt that combination by destroying one of them, I will most likely have a way to bring it back.

  • Spore Frog - Even in multiplayer, the frog is insane in Meren. It sacks itself when need be, and Fogs to avoid me being forced to block. It forces numerous attacks (and mostly lethal ones) until I actually take some damage, which makes for a bad use of resources and so encourages attacks to other players. Also, this with Butcher of Malakir is perfect!

  • Sheoldred, the Whispering One - Need I say more? Most times I don't even care if I get an extra creature back from the grave. Making my opponents sacrifice is often enough to win me the game fairly shortly.

  • Massacre Wurm - This is the least constraining card from the list for your opponents, but that second part of its text makes a whole world of difference by the time it hits the battlefield. You'll be killing creatures with your Butcher of Malakir or Fleshbag Marauder's triggers, and the Wurm comes late in the game, when players usually are hanging by thin threads in terms of life total. By the time you get a few death triggers from it, you'll probably be leading the game.

These are all great cards, but there are dozens others in the deck, and sometimes you have to draw them before you get to the truly powerful game ending cards, right? Yeah, that's why I like Meren so much. I build my decks on a budget as much as possible and Meren is perfect to tutor for things without breaking the bank! Cards that tutor things to your graveyard aren't that expensive, and Meren kind of wants creatures to be in the graveyard, that way they're free to play, and you can cast other stuff from your hand!

  • Buried Alive, Jarad's Orders - These two get you cards in the graveyard. Later Meren will put them into play. Usually early in the game I cast Buried Alive for Spore Frog or Sakura-Tribe Elder to quickly build up experience counters, Butcher of Malakir and Archfiend of Depravity, since these two will punnish the most out of your opponents. They can only keep 2 creatures and they're likely to be sacking some of them before they get they're next turn.

  • Sidisi, Undead Vizier - You have to sac a creature, but (but? Cross that!) - AND you get a huge body with deathtouch and just the card you wanted from your deck. Sacking is no set back, in fact it's a perk with Meren, so Sidisi works brilliantly within the strategy.

  • Dark Petition - A throw back to Demonic Tutor and Dark Ritual and pretty affordable too. Sometimes I don't even care if I don't get the Dark Ritual bit, but it's very rare for that not to happen, and either way, a tutor is a tutor. If you're not losing the game until your next turn, you're on the driving seat and that's why this is here for!

  • Chord of Calling - I've cast this card for the craziest things, even Viridian Zealot on a shortage of mana, so that I could destroy an infinite Sanguine Bond combo before it killed me. This card is brilliant, the only set back is it's pretty much unusable whenever I lend the deck to someone who doesn't know it as well as I do.

  • Behold the Beyond - Firstly I thought "I'd be happy with draw three cards, whenever I have nothing in hand, but tutor for three is brilliant!". Turns out, I don't mind having things in hand! Most of the times I'm glad to pitch them to bring back with Meren, and in the meantime I refuel with just the 3 cards I still wanted from inside my deck. This is definitely an undersung MVP in Meren decks!

  • Birthing Pod - There is a reason this card is banned in modern. We're not going for an infinite combo with it, but it doesn't make the Pod a weak card. This is the one card I took too long to pick up for Meren, and it is one of the single best cards you can have in a Meren deck.

Otherwise, the deck is built as a toolbox. You get most creatures with activated abilities that require sacrifice to get more experience counters without need for combat, creatures with relevant ETB abilities you want to repeat, so you are happy to sac them and bring them back repeatedly, and creatures that will eventually lock the game in your favour. Whatever you draw will have some use, and once you use it, Meren can "recycle" it. I've played Reclamation Sages with no targets just to get them out of my hand and have an emergency blocker, knowing that I'd kill it and get it back whenever I needed to remove an artifact or enchantment. Meren has all the tools and she can wield them whenever and however she needs.

This is a list of cards I've tried out and end up cutting that might still make it back in the deck or cards that I am still to try and believe that are worth the inclusion. I'll keep this list updated here and avoid including maybeboard within the actual list to keep the deck list more organized and easy to read. Cards in bold are the top priorities to include in further upgrades.
This was my first real EDH deck and I've been upgrading it bit by bit since I bought it right after launch. I had never fully updated the list in here, so from this change forward, I'll keep the real list updated and include all considerations in this description.

There was a lot of 5 drops in the deck (some usually cost less, but adjustment was needed nevertheless). Removed some to adjust mana curve. Kessig Cagebreakers is often too powerful to cut for now, but that's the next 5 drop on the line. In came the new Gearhulk and three staples I'd been chasing for ages:

There was still a odd duck in the deck. Lotleth Troll was played often and I like it a lot, but it was never game changing, nor add any relevance later in the game. Took it off for additional fixing.

The deck is still missing some ramp, having so many expensive creatures and effects. For this reason I'm cutting one of the high drops (a pet card of mine) for the signet I never bothered playing. This should make the deck a tad more consistent on getting to 5 or 6 mana soon in the game - which is at least where I want to be to be able to do relevant things in the game.

Optimized enchantment removal. Not having an Elves theme in the deck, makes Viridian Zealot worse than the new inclusion. Might bring him back if I feel my meta is too heavy in enchantments/artifacts, but for now, I'll stick with the cheaper option.

Satyr Wayfinder always revealed Vraska the Unseen or Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath when I used to run it. Usually it takes more cards from me than the lands it actually hits. It's too inconsistent, for this reason I chose to take it off, not for another ramp effect, but for a staple I should have already been running.

I've felt for a while that it's more beneficial to have a direct ETB trigger to use with Meren recursively, than to have a on death trigger with an activated ability to sacrifice the creature. Case in point: Yavimaya Elder. I've rarely paid to get the card draw out of him, and early game I struggle to find ways to sac him, while other players refuse to block a creature so small to keep me from ramping. For this reason, I ditched the card draw on a stick for the granted land on the same 3 mana.

The deck relies a bit too heavily on tapped mana. I actually like the Jungle Hollow for the sometimes very relevant life point, I also like the cycle lands because there's a point where I get more than enough lands (or at least ways to access them) and I'd rather draw a card. For that reason I kept the cycle lands. This left the Vivids as the next in line. I had 2 of the latest rare duals, and in a two colour deck they're strictly better than the vivid so I made that swap as well.

After some extensive consideration, and knowing I had to include Living Death, I was forced to conclude that Decimator of the Provinces being flashy, original and mostly unexpected, was the one card that didn't feel like it belongs in here. The fact that it triggers on cast, not on ETB makes it slightly worse in a Meren deck, and being 10 mana, (even discounted), I'd rather take it out, over something like Mazirek. The problem again is the clankiness of so many 5 drops in the deck. Even though this change technically brings the average CMC down, it adds to a problem I've only started to fix.

As previously stated, I was looking to lower the average CMC of the deck, especially cutting 5 CMC cards which alone made up more than a quarter of the deck, after some cuts had already been made. As a way to make the deck faster and more aggressive I took some of your suggestions and added in some mana dorks as a test for now. Other changes make way for Sifter of Skulls which is an excellent source of tokens, mana and experience counters by itself, being on 4 CMC which is kind of the sweet spot of the deck (since Meren comes out at 4, sometimes I get mana screwed and never get to 5, and Meren stands alone, but being 4 mana, allows it to be played anytime I could play Meren, and that makes the deck more consistent), as well as Elvish Visionary that also helps lowering the curve, while being a source of card advantage and a good target to get back with Meren soon in the game.

About the outs, obviously I have to talk about Sepulchral Primordial. It is an insane card, its effect can end games on its own, all right. But since I mostly play among other people with budget-ish decks, the Primordial can have some neat targets, but it rarely gets something game ending. Yes, that's a huge board presence swing, but it is also very expensive and the only times I get it into play is when I use Meren to reanimate it. I don't want to cast it at a cost so high, and that makes it a dead card more often than not. It's coming in in more competitive environments, and whenever I play among other graveyard centered decks, but at this point, it was one of the least impressive effects I had in the deck. As for Kessig Cagebreakers it's a pet card of mine, I love it and it wins me game after game - but it also loses me games whenever I can't fill my graveyard and the creature I run into is the Cagebreakers. Between that and Mazirek, I chose to cut the Cagebreakers, since I'm favouring payoffs on sacrifice, not on a full graveyard, as a general strategy. Korozda Guildmage and Soul of the Harvest were still in the deck more for numbers sake than for their purpose, they would rarely be relevant, and rarely brought any sizeable advantage to the table, so I'm replacing them for a general cheaper deck, trying to make it more consistent altogether.

As soon as I get my copy I'll probably add in this log the replacement of Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest for Mindslicer. For now, these are the changes that I will try out this weekend ;)

In > Demon of Dark Schemes, Winding Constrictor

Out > Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, Emrakul's Evangel

The interactions between cards like Massacre Wurm, Birthing Pod and Demon of Dark Schemes with creatures like Noxious Gearhulk, Merciless Executioner, Fleshbag Marauder, Shriekmaw and such make for immense board presence in your favour and an almost permanent control on anyone else's board. Winding Constrictor plays 3 roles here - more experience counters, more energy counters and it's a solid 2 drop, effectively lowering the curve a bit and optimizing other resources.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest wasn't getting enough love. Of course it was super strong once she started pumping everything, but I never had a game where I thought "What I really need now is Mazirek". There was always a better card in any given situation, because Mazirek only pulls me further ahead if I'm already winning, and even so, she doesn't close the game as fast as some other options. Now, the engine with Birthing Pod and additional reanimators make a string of plays so powerful that gives me an almost choking control over everyone's plays. Emrakul's Evangel is strong, but now the deck tends to win by just getting to that choking control situation, and I'd rather streamline the deck to find and strengthen that game state.

Lately I've found this deck to be really powerful, and able to choke people out of the game naturally, but the downside is that it takes too long to do it, and everyone keeps hopeful they can break my engine, which makes games long an less enjoyable. The last time I lost a game with Meren, it was due to Otaria playing a Planechase game and losing to 3 our 4 extra turns from a flying general (I was at 100+ life due to Gray Merchant of Asphodel so commander damage was the only way I'd go down, and all the opponents were at 10 or less, so one more turn would have done it), but playing a Meren deck with this kind of killing floor strategy, I don't enjoy making games longer because I get to play but not everyone else.

So this change is merely experimental. Firstly, I've been flooded too many times, and I end up recurring ramp spells more to thin my deck out of lands for me to draw, than to actually ramp into bigger spells, so I figured I should cut a few lands, and with them a huge creature that I rarely get to cast. The plan with Smokestack is to generate an engine that would allow me to regenerate my board quicker than my opponents and win the game quickly that way. This is obviously really weak against a well timed removal spell, and is possible for my opponents to play around once they learn how I play it, and that's another reason to include Mindslicer, getting answers out of their hands hopefully. Catacomb Sifter is a different form of ramp and filtering, providing tokens for all the sac outlets as well. And finally, Splendid Reclamation is a reset button for my own smokestack, allowing me to get the sacrificed lands back from the graveyard (which is also why I cut Rupture Spires because it must always be well timed to not mess my mana for the turn, in a green 2 color deck it is not needed).

As previously stated, I was looking to lower the average CMC of the deck, especially cutting 5 CMC cards which alone made up more than a quarter of the deck, after some cuts had already been made. As a way to make the deck faster and more aggressive I took some of your suggestions and added in some mana dorks as a test for now. Other changes make way for Sifter of Skulls which is an excellent source of tokens, mana and experience counters by itself, being on 4 CMC which is kind of the sweet spot of the deck (since Meren comes out at 4, sometimes I get mana screwed and never get to 5, and Meren stands alone, but being 4 mana, allows it to be played anytime I could play Meren, and that makes the deck more consistent), as well as Elvish Visionary that also helps lowering the curve, while being a source of card advantage and a good target to get back with Meren soon in the game.

About the outs, obviously I have to talk about Sepulchral Primordial. It is an insane card, its effect can end games on its own, all right. But since I mostly play among other people with budget-ish decks, the Primordial can have some neat targets, but it rarely gets something game ending. Yes, that's a huge board presence swing, but it is also very expensive and the only times I get it into play is when I use Meren to reanimate it. I don't want to cast it at a cost so high, and that makes it a dead card more often than not. It's coming in in more competitive environments, and whenever I play among other graveyard centered decks, but at this point, it was one of the least impressive effects I had in the deck. As for Kessig Cagebreakers it's a pet card of mine, I love it and it wins me game after game - but it also loses me games whenever I can't fill my graveyard and the creature I run into is the Cagebreakers. Between that and Mazirek, I chose to cut the Cagebreakers, since I'm favouring payoffs on sacrifice, not on a full graveyard, as a general strategy. Korozda Guildmage and Soul of the Harvest were still in the deck more for numbers sake than for their purpose, they would rarely be relevant, and rarely brought any sizeable advantage to the table, so I'm replacing them for a general cheaper deck, trying to make it more consistent altogether.

As soon as I get my copy I'll probably add in this log the replacement of Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest for Mindslicer. For now, these are the changes that I will try out this weekend ;)

In > Aetherworks Marvel, Journey to Eternity / Atzal, Cave of Eternity

Out > Smokestack, Splendid Reclamation

So, Smokestack turned the games into too much of attrition games, and they dragged for hours of no fun sometimes, I opted it out to bring in the much awaited Aetherworks Marvel I had been testing in my Breya, Etherium Shaper deck. With Smokestack off, there wasn't much need for Splendid Reclamation so with Rivals of Ixalan coming out Journey to Eternity is an obvious inclusion. We will easily transform it into Atzal, Cave of Eternity and from then on we pretty much have an improved Karador, Ghost Chieftain in form of a land, which is brilliant in a Meren deck!

Now you know where I'm going with the deck, how I usually play it, and how it is meant to win games, so feel free to leave any suggestions you have, I really appreciate it! Also, if you like the deck give it a +1, I'll be very thankful and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

This is the actual list I'm running as of April 10th, 2017. Chinese cards are marking cards that I still have to order to complete the deck.

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Date added 9 years
Last updated 6 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

38 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

17 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.83
Tokens Assassin 1/1 B w/ Player Killer, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Elephant 3/3 G, Energy Reserve, Experience Token, Horror */* B, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Saproling 1/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Actual EDH Decks, Liked Decks, bLACK GREEN GRAVEYARD, Meren decks, Meren, Meren Commander, Meren Decks
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