Dawntreader Elk
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Dawntreader Elk

Creature — Elk

, Sacrifice Dawntreader Elk: Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

1 month ago

In my Meren deck, I don't run a lot of bigger creatures, even though the deck has decent odds of ending up with huge amounts of mana, stuff like Beast Whisperer/Grim Haruspex draw cards off of creatures either entering or leaving the battlefield, there are lots of variants of both of those effects, and these will let you play many spells in a turn, rather than play one huge thing. I don't think your MVs are a huge problem, but the 'top of my curve' creatures are Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Protean Hulk, and Sheoldred, Whispering One, the first two can win on the spot or very quickly, while Sheoldred is a bit more questionable, a lot of people find stuff like Sheoldred tends to be too slow in todays game, so even that is a card I'm considering switching out for lower to the ground stuff. I checked and atm I have 14 1 drops, which is a few more, there are plenty of decent 1 drop mana dorks you could throw in to both lower your curve and possibly raise your consistency, though the best is Elves of Deep Shadow, since your deck cares more about Black mana.

As a general rule of thumb for Meren, if you can do a thing with a creature instead, you probably should unless the creature option is truly awful, I run 55 creatures in the 99, and I'm still thinking about sneaking more in by taking out things like Artifacts. Creature payoffs are better than artifact payoffs in Golgari, and Meren can't recur non-creatures.

For sac outlets, you ideally want a selection of 'free' sac outlets, ones that only use a creature and no other input, so stuff like Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Woe Strider, any of the good altars (Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, and Altar of Dementia are my all very good), Sadistic Hypnotist is insanely useful (it is a 5 drop though), if you have 4 drops that matter you can use Dimir House Guard because Transmute is a good mechanic if you care about the MV and it's also a free sac outlet. I think you can throw in a few sac outlets that are more limited, stuff like Helm of Possession, Phyrexian Tower, Hell's Caretaker, Altar of Bhaal, and Ritual of the Machine are all beefy effects, even if you can only use them once per turn. I really like stuff like Sakura Tribe Elder because the card provides it's own sac outlet (but only for itself), ymmv but I think you're taking a risk by running something like Solemn Simulacrum over Dawntreader Elk or Diligent Farmhand, 4 mana is a ton and it lacks a self destruct feature.

One option some people end up taking is replacing Meren as the Commander, not because she isn't strong enough but because the play patterns are pretty consistent, once you've figured out what your deck is trying to do, Meren is usually very predictable, so some people prefer something like Baba Lysaga, Night Witch. She offers card draw and a sac outlet in the Command zone while caring a lot less about creatures in particular, so you'd have more freedom in terms of card types.

Hope some of this is helpful!

DreadKhan on Meren Reanimation

1 month ago

I have a lot of fun using Meren in an EDH deck, maybe some of my EHD concepts translate?

I really liked stuff like Diligent Farmhand, Dawntreader Elk, and of course Sakura-Tribe Elder are very useful. There is also Elves of Deep Shadow, which is useful if you use the 'trick' of running lots of green ramp that finds Swamps/makes black mana and run less black sources because you only need a few. A few black ramp creatures are Blood Pet and Blood Vassal, Vassal is probably worse. A card I used to use in Meren that might work here is Street Wraith, it'll eat up a bit of life, but it gives Meren something worth getting back if she has low/no XP, I settled on running enough ramp-that-dies to not worry about Meren having nothing to do. Death payoffs like Grim Haruspex to draw some cards when things die might help too.

One really funny trick that's very easy for Meren to pull off (and that's way better in 1v1) is abusing Spore Frog, this also builds up XP fwiw. I think Dawnstrider is a lot worse in 1v1 than Spore Frog, but it is also a discard outlet so I run both in EDH.

If you want another 'backup Meren', there is also Hell's Caretaker, this is a bit cheaper than Meren and can actually reanimate big stuff on it's 2nd turn (usually much sooner than Meren), but it does eat a body each time.

Another trick I liked using was Gravecrawler + any sac outlet, as long as you've got another Zombie you can just reuse your Gravecrawler, even if you don't want to splurge on something like Phyrexian Altar or Pitiless Plunderer to make it infinite, it can still be pretty good to have a recursive (and cheap) creature.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on The woods is dead people

2 months ago

This looks pretty fun. It seems you are running Yedora more or less as a "generic green stompy". This is fine, and if you want to keep it that way, have fun.

There are still some cards you might like for Yedora specifically:

Burnished Hart and Dawntreader Elk are cards similar to Sakura-Tribe Elder. They cost a little more mana to use, but the synergy with your commander seems super worth-it.

The synergy between such cards and your commander become even when you include ways to bounce your own lands. Here are the ones I found:

Khalni Gem and Kazandu Stomper have it as a cost, so you need to do it if you want to use them. They have a rather high MV. I'm not too sure about them, but still wanted you to see them.

Storm Cauldron is a stax piece, so your playgroup might not enjoy it. It'll still pretty powerful here.

Nissa's Zendikon and Vastwood Zendikon are a lot of fun. See this land that was a creature? Now it's a another creature. You want to kill it? Sure, but now I have my creature back.

Slab Hammer is a nice way to turn a land bounce into damage.

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is a gigantic beatstick with a recursion ability that, with Yedora, grants you value to grant you more value.

Guildless Commons is pretty self-explanatory.

As you're also playing Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger is basically a second copy of it.

Finally, have you considered some sacrifice outlets? This would allow you to save your creatures from spot removal that exiles them. Birthing Pod is expensive, but Momentous Fall, Greater Good and Evolutionary Leap provide some serious value.

Whatcha think?

DreadKhan on Meren of Clan Nel Toth

7 months ago

I usually recommend people try out Diligent Farmhand and Dawntreader Elk as creatures for Meren to reanimate and ramp you because they are sacrificed. This makes these play better than Wood Elves in a lot of situations, but you can certainly run both (I only run 30 lands in my Meren deck, and no mana rocks, I usually end up with a ton of lands by the time the game is done).

If you use creatures that make a bunch of tokens upon entering the battlefield, you might like Demon of Dark Schemes, which can be used as a tiny wipe and as a repeatable source of reanimation? It combos fairly well, using Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar or Pitiless Plunderer, another card very good with the Demon or in Meren in general is Mitotic Slime, which is a ton of bodies for 5 mana. Another solid card in Meren is Callous Bloodmage, a very versatile creature to reanimate for sure, it also doesn't exile your graveyard when it exiles an opponent's. Dauthi Voidwalker is a really good card if you play against people who use a lot of spells, especially powerful ones, the ability is amazing in Meren because the cards that are exiled stay that way even if you recur Voidwalker it can still see all of those exiled cards, including any an opponent's Voidwalker exiled from your opponents. Helm of Possession is a really off-colour ability for Golgari, and you probably can pay the creature. When you want a new creature you can just sac the old one and steal a new one. Midnight Reaper is another Grim Haruspex, not sure how many you necessarily want, but I rarely mind having two out.

I don't love spells in Meren, but I make an exception for Jarad's Orders, Final Parting and Ritual of the Machine. Graveyard tutors are good in Meren, and tutoring cards into hand is also good. Ritual's ability to steal most creatures can really save you if people run certain kinds of decks. Another good tutor to consider is Fiend Artisan, digging out a Sidisi feels pretty good if Meren is out, I can usually recur her right away for a second tutor.

I'm not really sure if your creature count is high enough at 38, but I absolutely adore Lurking Predators, it can put out multiple creatures per cycle for me, which will usually put me ahead quickly. I run 55 creatures IIRC, so technically I should get a creature a little more often than every other spell, which is obviously absurd if someone else can't combo off. It's just hilarious when you pull something like Plaguecrafter or Ravenous Chupacabra.

It's pretty pushed so you might not want to run it, but Protean Hulk can find 6 MV worth of bodies, so it can find Walking Ballista and Mikaeus in one go, which is pretty solid. If you use something like Activated Sleeper you can get an extra 3 MV worth of creature, which can mean a Blood Artist and Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer to just win on the spot.

If you are using Mazirek, I feel like I have to mention One with the Kami, this very easily goes infinite with Mazirek, giving you infinite deaths and enters as well as infinitely large tokens for something like Altar of Dementia, or even swinging.

Your deck looks great as is, just throwing a few ideas out there for you, hope some are helpful!

multimedia on Muldrotha Snow: The Frozen Forest

9 months ago

Hey, well done with such a low budget, The Undead Forest is a cool deck name. Interesting deck idea for your first Commander deck with Muldrotha, but why snow? Weathered Runestone completely shuts down Muldrotha.

Marit Lage's Slumber, Jorn, God of Winter  Flip, Priest of the Haunted Edge, Blood on the Snow, Ice-Fang Coatl these are some reasons to play snow with Muldrotha. Iceberg Cancrix can repeatable self-mill and that's a good effect with Muldrotha. Pilfering Hawk can be repeatable loot which gets cards into your graveyard. Unfortunately, this isn't many cards.

Draugr Necromancer is a good card with snow, but it doesn't have much interaction with Muldrotha. Dead of Winter is another good card with snow, but Muldrotha is not a snow creature. Narfi, Betrayer King is fine, able to reanimate itself with snow, but he's support for snow not really a reason to play snow.

Some advice to consider is to play nonsnow cards that can put snow-covered permanents (lands) onto the battlefield to meet the snow requirement for snow cards without playing lots of unnecessary snow creatures. The best way to get snow permanents is with snow-covered lands. You really don't need lots of other subpar snow creatures here.

All these creatures could be cut to improve your deck.

Instead of playing lots of lesser snow creatures, play just the better snow creatures here?

Use other deck slots for cards that can search for and get snow-covered lands onto the battlefield?

Consider adding some spells that are not permanents that can search for and put snow-covered lands onto the battlefield?

Cards that can get snow-covered lands into your hand as well as get cards into your graveyard can be helpful with Muldrotha.

Could also add some snow mana rocks and mana dorks?

Land ramp for snow-covered lands and mana from mana rocks is more ramp which also helps to cast 6 mana Muldrotha as well as having more mana to cast permanents from your graveyard when you control Muldrotha.

Example of a budget more refined creature base with snow.

Good luck with your deck.

DreadKhan on Meren of Clan Nel Toth Aristocrats (WIP)

9 months ago

I find mana sources can be a good way to generate XP while adding lands/mana, Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand are both recursive ramp sources for Meren. Yavimaya Granger is another option, but requires you to hit 3 mana, so it's a bit worse. I also use Blood Pet, and there are some bigger Blood Pets out there. All of these can add mana to your pool, are easily recurred, and add XP when they ramp you, which lets you play out the rest of your hand quicker. If you're adding lands, it also will let you recast Meren when you inevitably need to. These are all better IMHO than Satyr Wayfinder and Yavimaya Elder (one doesn't ramp you and the other can whiff, one doesn't even die on it's own). Solemn similarly has issues, coming in at 4 mana and also not being able to sacrifice itself. Any of these that work for 2 mana at most are strictly better than Rampant Growth in a Meren deck in my experience, you want creatures to do this. Golgari Signet (and even Arcane Signet) are also probably worse than creature ramp, again provided it's low enough to the ground. These suggestions are assuming your goals is to actively try to generate XP and ramp at the same time, possibly while using little (or none) of your mana to do it.

I like Sadistic Hypnotist if you can fit it in, it's an infinite sac outlet that also can Mind Rot people, that's real value even at 5 mana. Mitotic Slime is a good way to generate a lot of bodies. Dockside Chef is a reasonable sac outlet, as is Skullport Merchant. Buried Alive, Final Parting, and Jarad's Orders are pretty solid tutors in Meren. Also worth a look, Viscera Seer, if not also Carrion Feeder, B for an infinite sac outlet can be huge. Worst case scenario they can off themselves for Meren to reanimate (free XP is always good).

DreadKhan on Meren (becoming) cEDH

9 months ago

What do you usually fetch out with Protean Hulk, and am I right in assuming that's usually how you win, dig out Hulk which digs out an infinite combo?

You might take a look at Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand, maybe Yavimaya Granger, as ways to ramp while generating XP. It's also nice that Meren can recur one of these if you've got nothing strictly better to be recurring, ramp and XP are generally a good thing that will let you do something bigger later.

It's not cheap, but Entomb is pretty helpful for cEDH Meren, as is Veil of Summer and perhaps Autumn's Veil, you want those two often to deal with the endless interaction. There is also Imp's Mischief to help out. In cEDH I think I'd want to run Culling Ritual, both for the big mana and to wipe out most permanents, people don't run a ton of high MV permanents, so even if it will hit some of your stuff it'll hit everyone else harder.

I would definitely cut Putrefy for something better, probably a creature that removes stuff like Plaguecrafter (there are quite a few that are slightly worse), I would even run a couple of these creatures, they are often a very good thing to recur with Meren. I would remove your other spell-based removal for stuff like that and use Caustic Caterpillar or Foundation Breaker, removal that you can repeat feels good when you're not using much/any mana to do it. You can probably run stuff like Abrupt Decay and Assassin's Trophy, they are among the best removal spells ever printed.

For some extra card draw, I like Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper, conveniently you can sac them to prevent decking yourself.

Phoetality on Meren Reanimator

10 months ago

I haven't had a chance to play the latest iteration, however I am hesitant to add to many cards that fetch land when I am already rocking Sakura-Tribe Elder, Yavimaya Elder, Viridian Emissary, Satyr Wayfinder and Farhaven Elf. On top of that, I also have 2 enchantments generating Eldrazi spawn and Pawn of Ulamog, all of which are sacrificed for colourless. However, if I do need to add another, the Dawntreader Elk certainly ticks the boxes.

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