Meren’s Thousand-Eyed Army [Primer]

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Control Primer Reanimator Rock Stax

Control_Train

Creature (43)

• 1x Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Cavalier of Night
• 1x Elvish Reclaimer
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fiend Artisan
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Kodama of the East Tree
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 1x Liliana's Standard Bearer
• 1x Massacre Girl
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Satyr Wayfinder
• 1x Savra, Queen of the Golgari
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Scute Swarm
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Spore Frog
• 1x Springbloom Druid
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip
• 1x Thrashing Brontodon
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x World Shaper
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 2x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 2x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vesuva
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Woodland Chasm

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Commander (1)

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Gaze of Granite
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Instant (8)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Necromancy

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Meren Reanimator Toolbox

Hello, and welcome to my Golgari on-board Control deck. This deck started from the pre-constructed deck and eventually became my pet project. As it stands, the goal of the deck is to win via a stax-lite game plan and answer almost any threat along the way. This will be a basic primer detailing how the deck functions and discussing almost each individual card choice. This list isn't hyper competitive or super casual, but it's honestly my favorite deck to play so I thought I'd spend some time writing a primer.

Why Golgari? Why Meren?

Why Golgari?

Golgari is one of the most powerful color schemes in Magic. It contains two of the best colors, lacking only Blue, and can quite literally answer almost anything your opponents throw at you. Black can deal with creatures, and Green can deal with pretty much anything else. Also, the lore behind the Ravnican guild is quite cool.

Why Meren?

This deck started from the pre-constructed Commander 2015 deck, so it started with Meren at the helm. I have considered changing the commander several times, most namely to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord , but realized I would be taking the deck in a different direction than I wanted. Meren is such a powerful recursion engine that if you’re looking for raw value based on dumping cards into your graveyard and sacrificing creatures, there is no other commander that can compete with her, at least not in these colors. She comes down early and is high-impact even with few experience counters. Meren in no way helps me combo, but she is the conductor on the value train from your first draw all the way to victory.

Card Draw and Self Mill

The card draw section may seem a little lacking, but the deck makes up for it with plenty of tutors and recursion. Also, Underrealm Lich is disgustingly good card advantage/selection.

• Dread Presence - can be card draw, and is quite good at it too, especially with Urborg
• God-Eternal Bontu - the best draw engine in the deck, hands down; combos grossly with World Shaper
• Grim Haruspex - on theme and very efficient card draw
• Krav, the Unredeemed - an amazing sacrifice outlet despite not being free because it both draws you cards and is a flat rate of one mana no matter how many creatures you sacrifice; that's a big deal on it's own
• Liliana, Dreadhorde General - haha, this card is nuts; it's Grim Haruspex with activated abilities
• Liliana's Standard Bearer - a draw engine that doesn't necessarily need to be in play when the creatures die for it to function, so I'm testing it for that reason
• Satyr Wayfinder - comes down early and finds land drops while filling the graveyard
• Smothering Abomination - it's a good card draw engine and it is technically a sacrifice outlet itself, though I don't really consider it one, it just acts as one in a pinch
• Underrealm Lich - this card is all kinds of value and let me tell you why; you cannot draw yourself out with this card, it’s essentially a Dredge 3 on every draw, it’s card selection versus just raw card draw, and it can protect itself with its activated ability
• Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - if this isn't the most busted sacrifice outlet in all of magic, I don't know what is; it draws cards, it's removal, and it's a sac outlet

Tutors

Tutors are not hard to explain. They find what you need when you need them, and in G/B, there are tutors galore. If you can't draw what you need, just go get it straight out of the deck.

• Buried Alive - our graveyard is kind of like our second hand in this deck, so why not get any three creatures we need right there for easy access at the end of turn with Meren or at instant speed with Chainer
• Chord of Calling - instant speed to the battlefield creature tutor that has convoke
• Demonic Tutor - arguably the best card in the game; becomes any card in your deck for a small price of two mana; we're in black, there's no reason not to run this
• Diabolic Intent - sacrifice a creature, oh no, what a downside; see Demonic Tutor
• Elvish Reclaimer - this one lets you tutor for lands by using Crop Rotation every turn, which I've found to be useful at all stages of the game
• Entomb - basically an instant speed demonic tutor for one mana
• Fiend Artisan - it's Birthing Pod, but on a creature that can be a threat itself, very good tech
• Finale of Devastation - this searches the library OR graveyard, which is completely invaluable
• Protean Hulk - when this dies, you tutor for six mana's worth of creatures directly into play; so happy they unbanned this beauty
• Sidisi, Undead Vizier - this card doesn't seem great at first, but Diabolic Intent attached to a body, even at a higher mana cost, is always good value for us
• Vampiric Tutor - a classic black tutor that can come down early and is still relevant late game
• Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire - this one works sort of like Fauna Shaman, except it's more expensive on both ends but can get anything; I'm still testing this but I have a good feeling

Ramp

We're in green, so we're ramping. More mana means more fun for us.

• Ashaya, Soul of the Wild - so this turns all of your creatures into lands for landfall effects and makes them all tap for green, which is the "primary" function of Ashaya and why I put her in the ramp section, but her hidden talent is that your non-token creatures cannot be bounced by Cyclonic Rift or targeted by anything that says "non-land" in it's text box, which is very powerful
• Cabal Coffers - early game this card isn't an allstar, but late game this card alone can essentially give you an extra turn's worth of mana; with Urborg, this gets stupid\
• Earthcraft - great way to ramp because I'm generally not attacking with my creatures anyways
• Gaea's Cradle - basically strictly better Forest, play it if you have it, don't if you don't
• Pawn of Ulamog - creatures more bodies to sacrifice and is a good source of ramp if you've got a sacrifice outlet
• Pitiless Plunderer - this ramps this deck far faster than anything else could hope to
• Sakura-Tribe Elder - the second best card in the entire deck, second only to Spore Frog; seriously though, this card gets out of control really fast and takes you miles ahead of the rest of the table
• Sifter of Skulls - see Pawn of Ulamog
• Springbloom Druid - can help mana fix in a pinch or just ramp you via a Harrow style effect; sacrificing the lands isn't bad for me because I get them back with World Shaper
• Wood Elves - just standard green ramp
• World Shaper - seems like the card I’ve been looking for to slam all those dredged lands in my graveyard into play; now part of the win condition

Removal/Answers

Now for this section I decided to lump together all of my spot removal, board wipes, and all the random cards that are in here to answer specific situations or strategies. This was the most exciting part about upgrading this deck for me personally, because I found that I could answer almost anything in the game (literally).

• Abrupt Decay - can’t be countered and hits a surprisingly large amount of targets in this format; instant speed makes this a must have
• Assassin's Trophy - possibly the best piece of spot removal ever printed in these colors, maybe ever; if I weren’t playing this I would slap myself
• Bane of Progress - this is just for wiping artifacts and enchantments; doesn’t hurt me because the only one in the entire deck is Pernicious Deed
• Beast Within - one of the best spot removal spells in the colors I'm playing; deals with anything cleanly for three mana
• Blast Zone - my only gripe with this land is that it can't really hit tokens, but it is very good in a pinch and it's on a land which is harder for opponents to interact with, so I'm keeping it
• Bojuka Bog - easy way to clean out someone else's graveyard, hard to interact with, and I can use it multiple times with World Shaper
• Caustic Caterpillar - it's just disenchant on a creature; it's cheap and efficient
• Cavalier of Night - it's Ravenous Chupacabra with upside; card is unfair
• Damnation - black Wrath of God; if you're playing black, you're playing Damnation
• Dismember - solid cheap removal, hits most relevant creatures
• Force of Vigor - a two for one that's free is almost too hard to pass up; exiling a card isn't great for this deck, but it's a downside that's worth playing through
• Gaze of Granite - just cleans up all permanents
• Living Death - this can act as a board wipe and a mass reanimation spell
• Maelstrom Pulse - probably the best spot removal in these colors; deals with tokens, gets around Gaddock Teeg, and will hit any non-land permanent
• Massacre Girl - a board wipe on a creature that Protean Hulk can find that goes way bigger than Havoc Demon or Massacre Wurm
• Plaguecrafter - hello this card is like Fleshbag Marauder but on some very prohibited steroids and it is all kinds of value against more than just creature decks; this is the kind of card that can just lock anyone out of the game
• Ravenous Chupacabra - I found that Shriekmaw was too narrow too much of the time and that it was a dead card in my hand, so I found something more all-encompassing
• Reclamation Sage - every green deck plays this spell, and it's not hard to see why; we can abuse this by recurring it, which makes it even better
• Savra, Queen of the Golgari - this is a card with dual functionality; it can gain life and it can also act as a pseudo edict effect
• Scavenging Ooze - just some more targeted graveyard hate and life gain
• Spore Frog - the best card in the deck; this card is extremely difficult to remove and protects you against all combat strategies for at least a turn and can also be used politically to stop the threat of the table from killing anyone else
• Sylvan Safekeeper - helps protect key creatures at a small cost and also part of the win condition
• Thrashing Brontodon - just another way to blow up artifacts and enchantments that is not and enter the battlefield trigger
• Toxic Deluge - very similar to BSZ, except it costs life instead of mana and is only until end of turn; honestly, the best board wipe in the colors

Other Goodies

This section is going to be all the cards I felt warranted explaining but didn't fit into any of the other categories.

• Carrion Feeder , Viscera Seer , Yawgmoth, Thran Physician , and Yahenni, Undying Partisan - sacrifice outlets; these let your things die at instant speed
• Field of the Dead - this isn't even a lands deck, but with World Shaper this card is aboslutely unfair; even as a standalone, this card generates a fair amount of value over the course of a game if it comes out early enough
• Kodama of the East Tree - this card seems like an insanely good value engine that becomes redundant very quickly, but it still seems too good not to use as it can trigger with Meren or anything else really
• Liliana, Heretical Healer   - this card is insanely good because it's like a Liliana of the Veil but with better minus abilites; and honestly, just making everyone discard a card once a turn for three mana is relevant
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - this card works wonders with both a reanimator deck in general and with a deck including only seven humans
• Necromancy - instant speed animate dead; testing it out
• Nether Traitor - it's one of the best recursive creatures in an aristocrats style deck, it essentially just works as always ready sacrifice fodder
• Reanimate - staples are good and in a reanimator deck paying one mana for a Protean Hulk is really good; seriously though, the deck can easily gain the life lost back and it's just such good value
• Scute Swarm - this card is a very good value engine for making sacrifice fodder and for winning the game; even if you don't have a lot of ramp, just try this thing out for a game or two and see how many you can make if it survives a few turns
• **RIP** Svogthos, the Restless Tomb - okay, I saw this card originally and just jammed it in; it's honestly not _that_ good, **_but killing someone with a 36/36 land is both hilarious and extremely satisfying._** [This card has been cut from the list, but it lives on in my heart.]
• Tergrid, God of Fright   - this card is one the craziest things I've ever seen for a deck with Living Death in it; absolute staple for graveyard decks I think
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - I've mentioned this card a lot so far, and this is just an auto include in most B/Bx decks; it helps with color fixing and synergizes extremely well with Cabal Coffers
• Volrath's Stronghold - super useful for recurring any needed creature in the graveyard

# Actually Winning Now that we've gone over all the individual cards, let's talk about actually winning the game.

Winning the Game

This deck mostly wins through grinding your opponents into concession. If you need a way to really win, there are two ways to do so easily.

1. Field of the Dead - again, with enough World Shaper activations you can make enough zombies to kill a table
2. Scute Swarm - this thing is literally insane, one good World Shaper activation and you've got six digits worth of these things

Thanks for stopping by and reading this. Any feedback is always welcome, and if you liked the list, please upvote!

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #3 position in Commander / EDH Primer 5 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 51 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.23
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Experience Token, Insect 1/1 G, Morph 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	edh, Graveyarding, Reference decks, Interesting Commander Decks, Commander Decks, Ideas, Reference, Cool Decks, EDH Decks for Reference, Deckstoreviewv2