Life / Death

Sorcery

Life:

All lands you control become 1/1 creatures until end of turn. They're still lands.

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Death:

Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost/mana value.

Legality

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

Discussion (48)

multimedia on The Ooze makes it sticky

4 months ago

How's it going? Nice recent update, you've done a good job with cutting creatures. If you're worried about card prices then don't get Grim Tutor, not worth it, since for it's high price you could add many more budget friendly card upgrades.

Something to think about for some deck improvements is the mana curve and how it plays having such a heavy top end. The big creatures you want to reanimate are the top of the mana curve here and there's a lot of them, it's filled. Having many other 5 CMC or higher spells (there's 10 here) that aren't creatures can really bog down the mana curve making gameplay worse.

Grievous Wound, Demonic Covenant, Badlands Revival, Convert to Slime, Final Parting, The Cruelty of Gix, Deadbridge Chant, Breach the Multiverse none of these cards are really needed. Since creatures fill the top of the mana curve then focus on improving the beginning of the mana curve? Malevolent Rumble and Diresight are examples of cards at beginning of the mana curve that do a lot for their mana costs for reanimation strategy.

Consider more lower mana cost reanimation spells? If the plan is to cast Stickfingers turn 4 for two then give yourself more chances to reanimate a creature that same turn with more lower mana cost reanimation? You have Reanimate and Animate Dead, but that's really it for early game possible reanimation. Consider Life / Death and Soul Exchange?

A big advantage of green recursion spells here is getting back a reanimation spell to reanimate again. The problem is most of the recursion spells here can only get back a permanent, not a nonpermanent spell. Other than Animate Dead most reanimation here is coming from nonpermanent spells. Consider Regrowth and Dryad's Revival?

Opponent exile effects at your creatures can really ruin your day. Consider some protection against exile? Fine protection against exile here is creature sac since if you sac your creature in response to the exile then it instead goes to your graveyard to be reanimated again. Greater Good is powerful since it can be repeatable, not only is it creature sac, but draw and discard too. Lazotep Quarry is a land that can sac a creature to make a mana.

If you're having trouble with opponents attacking you then Grave Titan could really help. It puts a lot of defense onto the battlefield when it comes in.

multimedia on The Ooze makes it sticky

5 months ago

This new direction for you to consider improves big creature reanimation, threats shouldn't be a problem if you play smarter. Gameplay will be much different with less creatures, relying more on noncreature spells since they will be replacing creatures. In my opinion a good rule for casual Commander deck building is to have at least 10 sources of draw and ramp. Find deck room for lots of these effects as they're the two most important type of effects for smoother gameplay. Cards that both draw and ramp are helpful Collector's Vault.

More card draw Diresight can help to play smarter since you can better sculpt your hand because you see more cards. Draw spells in the early game Night's Whisper can also help to get more than 7 cards in your hand to then have free discard of creature(s) at your Cleanup step until you have 7 cards in hand. Low mana cost (0-3 CMC) ramp Sol Ring is important because you don't want to have to rely only on your one land drop on your turn as the only source of having mana. With less creatures you don't want mana dorks as ramp only noncreature cards Arcane Signet. Some lands since 40 lands is a lot, could be cut for lower mana cost ramp Utopia Sprawl.

Having your graveyard exiled is a fear/concern for all players who play reanimation thus with Stickfingers don't dump all your creatures at one time into your graveyard. Instead Stickfingers for 2 putting 2 threats into your grave and try to reanimate a creature the same turn you put creature into your graveyard. Paying less mana for Stickfingers leaves mana leftover to reanimate that same turn. This makes more 1 or 2 drop reanimation spells important to play Life / Death, Persist and more any card recursion Regrowth to get reanimation spell back to cast again.

There's cards you can play that help against graveyard exile, but ultimately you can't stop it from happening therefore the best defense is to play smarter. Instant reanimation Makeshift Mannequin, reanimate in response to the exile. Play more lower mana cost removal that can remove artifact, enchantment or creature graveyard hate Assassin's Trophy. In response to graveyard exile you can instant put creatures back into your library Turn the Earth or Repopulate.

Having less creatures and you're worried about not having enough blockers play additonal big creatures like Massacre Wurm. Play more creature board wipes Crux of Fate and Terror Tide. Reanimate big creatures who create token creatures Avenger of Zendikar to then use the tokens as blockers or sac fodder Grave Titan. Planeswalkers that can repeatably create creature tokens Grist, the Hunger Tide are nice. Grist can be reanimated by creature reanimation because when it's in your graveyard it's a creature. It's also a creature in your library therefore if revealed, Stickfingers puts it into your graveyard.

Having more creature token producers Liliana, Death's Majesty makes Altar of Bhaal viable repeatable reanimation since you can exile a creature token to reanimate. Liliana can also be a source of repeatable mana free reanimation. Altar's repeatable reanimation is really powerful when you have token fodder to exile. Grave Titan, Hornet Queen, Avenger of Zendikar are excellent with Altar. Having creature tokens also is defense against most opponent edict effects.

DreadKhan on The Mimeospasm [Reanimator Terminator] - primer

8 months ago

Yeah, Dreadnought is one of those cards I was sure you'd already know about, but it seems really convenient with your Commander.

I think Triskelion is a better card with your Commander than Walking Ballista, but both can go infinite with Mikaeus iirc, but you'll need an extra piece with Walking Ballista because Mikaeus makes it a 1/1 base creature, so it won't die because it has no counters, Triskelion can ping itself and still have a ping for something else, meaning you can combo off easier with it, so I'd go with that.

I'm a bit surprised that Necrogoyf would be smaller than Tarmogoyf, especially if you've got Mill in your deck, it looks in every bin for creatures, surely there are 2 or 3 in each opponents' bin? If you've got 3 opponents with 2 creatures a piece (which doesn't seem like a big ask by mid game, but I don't know your playgroup the way you do!), that's 6 creatures before counting your own, and you've probably been filling it as well. I think I misread the Urborg one, it only looks at your graveyard, so you're definitely correct about that one!

It's not EXACTLY 'Fast Mana', but Songs of the Damned can generate a bunch of mana if you have a full graveyard, it's the kind of card you use with Razaketh, the Foulblooded I figure.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between playing a land with Explore or using Burgeoning, Burgeoning won't let you use Crucible unfortunately, but has a very high ceiling potentially. I use Burgeoning in my Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck because that deck would love to have a hand with 6 lands and Burgeoning, but it's less keen on Explore and similar effects. You could try a Sakura-Tribe Scout, it's potentially better ramp than Birds of Paradise, you just have to run enough lands to justify it (I think 37 is fine), it's also a cheaper card to test out I suspect. Oh, with a card like Razaketh you can easily chain together a win if you've got lands, I do that in Meren with Life / Death which turns all my lands into creatures so I have plenty of fodder for Razaketh, I usually chain a few untap effects (I just recycle Benefactor's Draught a couple times to generate enough mana to win), Razaketh is a great card if you've got access to LED (even Lotus Petal can do work, and if you can tutor up Lotus Petal with Razaketh you can always dig out Mox Amber fwiw). I think if you wanted you could switch out Runescarred Demon for Razaketh (or just pretend Runescarred is Razaketh to test haha), both are tutors that cost a lot of mana, Razaketh is a much better body and a much better tutor IMHO.

If you want Haste on your Commander I think I'd use Hall of the Bandit Lord, it's not a spectacular card but it will give you access to Haste, I've been fairly happy with it in a competitive list that cared about Haste on the Commander, it's a terrible land but Haste is REALLY good sometimes.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

1 year ago

The OG Fetches are very good cards in almost any deck, and as I mentioned in my first post, I don't know if it would be easy to improve this deck without either adding Fetchlands or increasing the power level.

The easiest way to increase the power level a deck like yours is to add a combo, but your present power level is high enough that you'd need to add a fairly efficient combo, something like Protean Hulk to find a complete combo (ideally via a single pile), this would leave you at a strong 8, not quite cEDH but it's fairly hard to make Meren a cEDH deck at this point, her ability is too slow/grindy for cEDH games. cEDH Meren lists are likely to make use of something like Razaketh, or possibly a Phyrexian Devourer combo. Razaketh uses something like Life / Death to turn your lands into creatures so you can keep tutoring until you find both your combo of choice as well as the mana to play it. Razaketh decks love stuff like Lion's Eye Diamond, which is extremely pricey and does very little other than combo off. You'd also want Dark Ritual type cards, and possibly things like Lotus Petal and Elvish Spirit Guide. The main problem with Razaketh is getting him out early, but something like Final Parting can get you there by putting Razaketh in the bin and a Reanimate into hand. Similarly, you can reanimate a Protean Hulk (which you then sacrifice) to tutor up a game ending combo, the advantage of Protean Hulk is that it's easier to cast when you're desperate, but the upside of Razaketh is that you can tutor up any cards you want, Razaketh just gives you a new hand in exchange for a few creatures. I think Protean Hulk is the best of the lot, but Phyrexian Devourer isn't a bad option, you use Triskelion with it by getting both into your graveyard, with a Necrotic Ooze on the battlefield, you then just exile cards to put counters on your Devourer, and the only real drawbacks are your limit on individual MV (Devourer dies if it gets too big), and you'll need enough total MV to actually kill everyone (this isn't too hard if you go off fairly early, but it can suck if you take all game to get into position and can't kill everyone because you don't have enough cards left. Another upside to Devourer is that Triskelion also wins the game with Mikaeus (you ping Triskelion with the last counter so it dies (without any counters left) and has Undying). Oh, with Protean Hulk the 'smallest' pile I am familiar with involves Disciple of the Vault, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Lesser Masticore, and Carrion Feeder/Viscera Seer, with that pile you don't even need Activated Sleeper to nab a second Protean Hulk (with only 3 MV after you account for the Sleeper). The main drawback of this pile is that the cards are individually bad IMHO (I would run Feeder and Seer, but none of the others fit in a generic Meren deck), and the lack of redundancy (Melira and Masticore aren't used in a lot of other combos in Meren decks afaik) makes it less stable than some lists. The final one I feel is worth mention is Demon of Dark Schemes, Mitotic Slime, and Phyrexian Altar nets you infinite mana, ETBs, death triggers, Energy, and all the creatures in each graveyard can be reanimated by you. The nice thing about the Demon is that it's only 6 mana (so technically Hulk can find him), and it can do a lot of work in certain situations since it can wipe small creatures as well as reanimate cards from anyone's graveyard. It's one of the better generic reanimation effects that can go infinite, and it's sheer range of utility makes it worth looking at even if you didn't use Mitotic Slime. The Slime btw is very good in most Meren decks since it offers a plethora of tokens for only 5 mana, while Phyrexian Altar (or Pitiless Plunderer) are both amazing cards in a deck like this.

If you feel like adding a combo, I wouldn't have more than ~2 trees/paths to work with, unless the cards are shared between multiple lists.

I can go into more detail if it would be helpful, I have a Meren deck on here you could take a look at, it's a lot more combo oriented than your list, but it's combos aren't optimal, they're all made with stuff I already had.

Jimmithee on no no no wait wait wait

1 year ago

Collection of suggestions from the thread, plus a few of mine:

Max out Griselbrand, and remove cityscape leveler and two Iona's. I'd recommend taking out persist and replacing it with Life / Death, for the sole reason that most of your reanimation targets are legendary. You should also add a playset of Putrid Imps to have a discard outlet on the ready, which could replace buried alive. Definitely replace the Sol Rings with Lotus Petal to make the deck Legacy legal, and replace The Stone Brains with something like Thoughtseize or Collective Brutality.

Probrably not the best reanimator target, but my personal favorite one is Akroma, Angel of Wrath :)

jamochawoke on Uurg eats everything

1 year ago

This is a super fun little combo deck! But it can get shut down pretty easily. I'd suggest putting some key Commander pieces in that you're missing... and thankfully there's a TON of things that work with a land-based deck archetype like this in those colors.

First off, you need to complete your Cultivator combo with Splendid Reclamation for getting all those lands out of your own yard in a very big way (Cultivator probably becomes the biggest thing in your game at this point)!

Centaur Vinecrasher or Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar are superb alternate or additional beatsticks for Cultivator with tons of synergy with your commander that also dig themselves out of the graveyard after they get immediately removed like in my games!

Terravore is nice if you never hit Cultivator in your games (or it gets hated out).

Constant Mists basically you get eternal fog in a deck like this whenever you want if it doesn't get countered.

Entish Restoration, Dig Up, and Beseech the Queen for synergistic tutors.

Kagha, Shadow Archdruid, Elvish Reclaimer, Grisly Salvage, World Shaper, Circle of the Land Druid, Stinkweed Imp, Winding Way, Life from the Loam, Scapeshift, and Satyr Wayfinder for digging through the deck faster while also rotating lands. Life From the Loam is ESPECIALLY GOOD for its dredge ability in this deck so you can keep casting it. Scapeshift is the single most powerful cycler you could run but it's very $$$ and doesn't synergize completely with this deck (it's more for landfall decks, but it can still work with this too).

The utility lands Witch's Cottage, Mortuary Mire, Memorial to Folly can help get your creatures back out of the 'yard.

The utility lands Witch's Clinic, Rogue's Passage, Ghost Quarter, Strip Mine, Wasteland, Field of the Dead, Thespian's Stage, Restless Cottage, Boseiju, Who Endures, and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire would all help your deck's overall resilience and ability to deal with threats.

Either Abundance or Rishkar's Expertise could be a game-ending bomb for you. Rishkar's is great if your commander has enough power. You can draw a ton of your deck, likely hit a tutor you cast for free, then if your hand is flooded with lands you discard down to 7 putting all those lands in your 'yard making your commander even bigger! Abundance isn't as synergistic, but is basically a creature tutor spell for Cultivator Colossus if you decide to not run any other beaters or utility creatures.

Assassin's Trophy for instant-cast targeted removal of EVERYTHING.

Tear Asunder and Abrupt Decay are less-good Assassin's Trophy but at least Decay can't be countered.

Casualties of War for when you need to get rid of a lot of different pests that turn.

Return to Nature for instant-cast targeted removal of Enchantment/Artifact or Graveyard card.

Drown in Filth for a land-synergistic targeted removal that gets around indestructible.

Terror Tide for land-synergistic boardwipe that also gets around indestructible.

Nurgle's Conscription, Froghemoth, and Bojuka Bog for some enemy graveyard hate.

Rain of Filth for a MASSIVE spike in mana for that turn.

Worm Harvest for generating a TON of tokens off of the lands in your 'yard.

Titania, Protector of Argoth or Rampaging Baloths for much, much bigger tokens.

Gitrog, Horror of Zhava and The Gitrog Monster for super frog-land-pseudocycling synergy!

Brawn since you're putting things in your 'yard anyways you might as well give your commander and other beatsticks Trample for free! Trample has saved me so many times in games. No reason not to run it in this deck tbh.

Erinis, Gloom Stalker, Ayula's Influence, and Old Rutstein for more synergy with your commander's ability.

Life / Death for making an army out of your lands or pulling something out of your 'yard.

The planeswalkers Nissa of Shadowed Boughs and Vraska, Golgari Queen can give you alternate win-cons while also being synergistic with your commander.

If you don't need more combo stuff and just need another big beatstick alternate for the Colossus it's hard to go wrong with Yargle and Multani's power (plus the stained glass alt-art is sick!). But unfortunately it doesn't come with the cool yard recovery abilities of the other beatsticks I mentioned and doesn't have trample or evasion, but it does have more power than Emrakul!

DreadKhan on

1 year ago

I could be wrong, but since your deck cares about lands I would make an effort to include more land ramp, artifacts seem to get blown up a lot anyways. I would use Wood Elves over arcane signet (or Dawntreader Elk?), replacing Sol Ring is harder, but there is Crop Rotation. Finding a Coffer or Urborg at the right time is a much bigger effect than Sol Ring. Deserted Temple is a good card in here with Coffers. Since you have Urborg and Coffers in here I wonder about Hour of Promise and/or Tempt with Discovery, if you can cheat out 2 or 3 lands at once you can probably cast your Commander and go off.

Not sure if it's really a 'good' card, but Silverglade Pathfinder can dig lands out repeatedly, your Commander is high enough MV that this might be worth doing.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild is interesting in here, but especially if you've got something like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds out. Ashaya also works very well with your landfall effects.

I'm not sure if you need to stack up activations, but if you reanimate your Commander you can activate him again, so maybe some of the lower to the ground reanimation effects, stuff like Reanimate, Life / Death, and Animate Dead. They are pretty big ramp if you have a sac outlet and your Commander out.

I'm not sure if it's outside your playgroups boundaries, but Pitiless Plunderer is very good with Chatterfang. It's not a combo, but if you've got lots of Pests kicking around there is Savra, Queen of the Golgari, she's budget compared to Dictate of Erebos and might fit in here.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

2 years ago

If you're interested in playing fair, then you might like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. This can take a board full of utility creatures and make them very formidable very quickly. Hell's Caretaker is a card I find useful that doesn't go infinite with anything I know of, it just lets you sneak stuff in once per turn. If you don't include anything like Pitiless Plunderer you can set up repeatable sacrifice loops to generate XP for Meren, probably to reanimate a Protean Hulk or someting else juicy. For this you might use Gravecrawler or Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and probably a 1 drop Knight to have something you can keep killing over and over. Any card that cares about creatures dying will go off, so some stuff that draws on death might be nice, Liliana, Dreadhorde General is a versatile card that fits the bill.

In my experience, the best thing you can tutor up is usually Protean Hulk, Sidisi, or Razaketh, any of these tends to spiral out of control in a deck that can reanimate them on the end step or sooner. Hulk can find various creatures to solve whatever problems you have, but you probably need a sac outlet to ensure it dies right away, the others are more generous. Razaketh notoriously likes abusing Life / Death to set up a pretty quick win when you're ready, you can find stuff like rituals to generate enough mana to go off.

If you want another reanimator that isn't picky, there is Demon of Dark Schemes that helps clear the board of weenies, and as long as you don't have cards that generate mana the Demon won't go infinite with something like Mitotic Slime or Underworld Hermit, they'll just give you lots of triggers for your extra mana. Demon also likes Merciless Executioner type creatures, they can easily generate Energy. Another reanimator I often forget reanimates stuff is Liliana, Death's Majesty, this brings back stuff as a Zombie if you don't want the ultimate, and she survives some wipes as a PW that can make 2/2s while milling you. Some people don't like PWs so ymmv.

I suspect that if you're not sure if you need more wipes, you might want to try one or two more. In Black there is Make an Example that is very brutal as you always hit your priority target for each opponent. It won't clear the board, but it can help manage it, and you can follow it up with a bunch of forced sacrifice. One card that likes seeing a wipe happen (that makes running extra feel less problematic) is Ogre Slumlord, if you run enough 'pay life'effects you might want Sangromancer, and if you think you can kill enough of your opponent's permenants then Kothophed, Soul Hoarder might work out, that can turn a Damnation into a big draw spell.

If your deck is finding it hard to stay alive, you can use Dawnstrider to save you on needing to reanimate a Spore Frog, though I use both as I find Meren can be annoying to certain players.

If you like Phyrexian Arena and aren't using 'win on the spot combos', have you considered Protection Racket? This can draw plenty of non-land cards or deal damage to your opponents, both seem good as long as you don't care if you lose some random 1-3 drops. There is also Black Market Connections, this can provide various resources without being as busted/all-or-nothing as Necropotence.

Hope some of this is helpful! Any Commander that requires a lot of tutoring is very frustrating to learn to play, Commander is incredibly hard to master, but it's easy to get better with practice!