Any reason you are not running the Devoted Druid Channeler InitiatePackage for your nooze combo.And possibly including an additional hulk line of Hermit Druid, Deathrite Shaman, and Mogis's Marauder To cheat HD into play with haste and win off of dread returning nooze

Carrion-Rack what exactly would you cut to add in all those cards?

The reason I'm not running Devoted Druid / Channeler Initiate package is because infinite mana in a single turn does little for this deck.

Can you explain the Druid / Marauder line?

Druid, shaman, and marauder enter play marauder etb happens with no other permanents in play your devption to black is 2 you give marauder and druid haste activate HD reveal until you reveal a basic land ooos you have none your library is in the yard cast Dread Return for its buyback cost to reanimate nooze and win with walking balista route with infinite mana

As for cuts body snatcher, Bob, Rec sage, triskielion, merciless executioner, and joraga tree speaker.An Abrupt Decay, and Exploration would go a long way

Snatcher is one of the lines in the hulk combo, so is trike. Reclamation sage is one of those cards that pretty much needs to be in this deck since it can be tutored a number of different ways when the board is locked (e.g. through pod, or yisan), and bob is another advantage when stax is out. The combo you're describing seems like it needs quite a few moving parts together (about 4 cards), whereas the ones you're suggesting the pieces are removed from requires a total of 2 cards and there's multiple ways in the deck to get there).

I used to run abrupt decay but then decided to go for the stax instead, since that locks up the board fairly well preventing most things i need to use abrupt for from even being cast in the first place. Exploration is good, but generally carpet of flowers and the mana dorks do fine. The cmc for this deck is 2.4.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

Wheres the Volrath's Stronghold?

Unlke what Carrion-Rack stated, keep Bob, Rec. Sage, Executioner. Don't add Exploration. Abrupt Decay, Hero's Downfall Dismember Snuff Out go a long way. You can cut Dismember to keep Executioner though.

Used to run Volrath's Stronghold when it was a good stuff deck. But on the combo stax it's not as integral. I'll keep it in mind though, and play around to see if there's some space for it.

I run a Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Stax deck, and I find that even if you run Meren, you still run Volrath's. Mainly because if you need to get rid of something to play everything out in your hand, you grab the card from your grave and cast. Boom, Recurring Rec. Sage. There are plenty of reason I could see cutting it, but to have redundancy especially with how much more Stifle Effects are out there now, it never hurts to have another card that does it.

What's the replacement for Bazaar of Baghdad? I'm inclined to say Homeward Path. I support pretty much all your recent changes, by the way.

JaysonSunshine,

Yeah, the reason why I don't have bazaar listed is because I do not own it on paper (I wanted it, and I listed it here for a bit, but the more I looked into buying one, the less and less I wanted to buy one, the recent price hike is to blame).

(Also a bit of a meta call, since there's quite a few black / blue / red players in my pods that like to take ownership of other player's things)

Thanks for the comment!

Shadowz6677, yeah i used to think the same way. But meren already does plenty of recursion. The other card I thought about putting back in was Phyrexian Reclamation which I think is better than Volrath's Stronghold in the sense that it can be activated more than once in response to say Faerie Macabre but still, cutting something for either of those became difficult.

However, I'm still thorn between Ramunap Excavator and Crucible of Worlds. Crucible being less likely to be removed than ramunap, but ramunap more easily recursed with meren. 1st world problems

I'm less experienced with Meren, being more of a Gitrog player, but my intuition is that Meren would prefer Ramunap Excavator over Crucible of Worlds.

So I have one question regarding Ballista. I'm aware of the +1 from Mike with undying. But, unless you are paying the 4 everytime too add a +1. Or do you have another way to add another +1 that I'm not seeing? Otherwise it wouldn't work. So my question is, how would it work? Are you somehow adding infinite mana? Or is there another +1 I'm missing?

Enkou666,

Ballista works the same way as trike, except that you need a sac outlet such as Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder.

E.g. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Viscera Seer + Walking Ballista = Remove a counter from ballista to deal 1 damage, sac Walking Ballista to Viscera Seer and mike brings ballista back with a counter. You can do that infinitely. The upside is that you can bring out both Mike and Ballista with Protean Hulk at the same time since the CMC is still 6.

So the line becomes:

Sac Protean Hulk to bring out Body Snatcher + Sylvan Safekeeper + sac outlet (such as Viscera Seer) -> Sac Body Snatcher in response to it's own ETB to bring back the hulk -> bring out ballista and mike.

You can do this as early as turn 2. And it protects the combo from any interruptions with the safe keeper, and that should be a guaranteed win. Otherwise the combo could be broken by an untimely swords or path.

This is listed under "Wincons" in the description.

Thanks.

I understand the fetch from Hulk. So Etb, Ballista dies comes back from Mike with undying because no +1 counter. But, once you remove the undying counter wouldn't it just die from having no toughness? Therefore the ability not resolving because it died?

Mike gives all non-humans +1/+1.

But even IF mike didn't, it would still work, because the ability goes on the stack, then state-based actions would see ballista at 0 toughness and it would die. Abilities on the stack generally resolve even if their source is removed.

But in this case, mike does give it +1/+1 which is why you need the extra sac outlet for ballista.

That makes sense. Thank you.

where did you find the art for that meren?

tymaret_the_derp_king, there's alt codes you can use. When you click on a card you can see those alt codes as a button.

If you're talking about where to buy, i bought this meren from here: http://www.ioffer.com/i/meren-of-clan-nel-toth-edh-casual-play-custom-foil-618678485

thanks

Maybe look into underrealm lich? In a meren deck its basically draw 3 whenever you would draw a card.

The deck looks tight. Gave it an upvote! Just about to build it myself. Is it still the same today as you have listed here? Or are there other cards I should be looking into? Thanks in advance!

C0RP53M0URN Thanks for the upvote!

It is indeed still the same as it is listed here. The only thing I am missing is a Bazaar of Baghdad but I'm not gonna get one of those any time soon :)

Would you ever consider adding a copy of The Abyss? And if you could, what would you remove?