Lion's Eye Diamond

Artifact

Sacrifice this, discard your hand: Add three mana of any one colour. Activate this ability only any at time you could play an instant.

Combos

• Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond
• Lion's Eye Diamond + Underworld Breach
• Brought Back + Eternal Witness + Lion's Eye Diamond

Legality

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

Discussion (48)

SufferFromEDHD on Let the Nightmare Go On..

1 month ago

Demonic Collusion discard AND tutor

Dark Petition tutor AND ritual

Lion's Eye DiamondGC ritual AND discard

Argentum Masticore discard AND interaction

Incarnation Technique > Afterlife from the Loam

Imp's Mischief and/or Temporal Extortion your mono black deck could benefit from some "{U}" spells

NV_1980 on Ur-Dragon - cEDH

1 month ago

I'd recommend you try and play-test this on the site. I just did and if cEDH is anything like I remember, this is nowhere near competitive yet. I tried to draw twenty or so starting hands as well as the following 5 cards but very few examples yielded anything resembling useful actions before turn 5.

In order to make this truly competitive (which is admitedly hard for most 5-color decks), you need more 0-mana rocks, like the really expensive ones like Lion's Eye DiamondGC and Mox DiamondGC and/or your land-count needs to increase by 4 or 5 and/or your cheap ramp (sorceries?) need to increase and/or the amount of tutors you're using needs to increase.

Also, for a competitive deck, this one is way too low on its (cheap) draw options. Just saying. Stuff like Preordain, Ponder, etc.

Good luck.

DreadKhan on Meren Sacrifice Shenanigans

2 months ago

I see that you are taking a pretty different angle than I did here, but there might be a few cards that I can suggest from my own Meren and the Golgari Queens. Would Savra, Queen of the Golgari make sense in your list? It's a slightly different Grave Pact, but at 4 mana and easy to cast she can come out earlier, the life gain is a lot less important other than offsetting the payment for the effect.

I think they're about as fun as an untreatable toothache, but Grave Pact effects in my experience like you to run several of the Merciless Executioner type creatures that exist, Accursed Marauder is a great start, but I think Plaguecrafter and Demon's Disciple might fit. I don't know exactly how many you'd 'want', but I'd run 3-5 creatures that exist almost purely to make everyone sacrifice a creature. IMHO if you only run one or the other the Executioners are probably the better include since you can get them out sooner, they stand alone (Grave Pact does nothing if you don't have a creature), and you can recur them with your Commander, but both are INCREDIBLY nasty when combined. In the decks I have that use edicts you really want to reach 'critical mass', so that you both have access to an Edict when it's necessary, but also have enough to continuously pare back the opponent's board.

This is a personal preference more than anything, but when I play Meren my fondest hope is usually to have a creature that ramps me that also kills itself; Sakura Tribe Elder is the 'gold standard' of the effect, but I think you could benefit from Diligent Farmhand and Dawntreader Elk, and maybe Yavimaya Granger. I even run Fertilid and Burnished Hart, but I don't think I'd recommend them to anyone else at this point! Anyways, the idea is you juggle one of these to both gain XP for Meren while ramping yourself, and when you draw something better to reanimate just reanimate that. The ramp is usually very useful to cast either Protean Hulk or Razaketh.

Speaking of Razaketh, I found it VERY useful to have mass untap effect to go with Life/Death, once Life/Death makes all your lands into weenies you can untap them with something like Vitalize or Benefactor's Draught. I also threw in a Songs of the Damned and Dark Ritual to help generate mana when I'm short. Lotus Petal is also a very good Razaketh card if you don't want to spring for Lion's Eye DiamondGC.

Just a little tip I stumbled upon, most Meren decks have very high Black devotion, but they rely heavily on early Green ramp; I really wanted to shave lands for creatures in my list, but since I can find Swamps with Forests via ramp, I ended up running WAY less Black sources than Green. I used 7 Basic Swamps and 2 Swamp/Forest duals, and I find I have very few fixing issues, even with a very low land count, since I almost never need more than 2 lands early on, and I found the deck absolutely hated drawing into them (Meren is a deck where I feel like you're supposed to run all the creature ramp you can, because Meren cares so much about Creatures and so little about non-creature spells, lands are dead draws).

I guess that brings me to the last point, I feel like you should really try to get more creatures into this list; your Commander does absolutely nothing if you don't have creatures in the graveyard. I have 57 in the 99 atm, I feel like having less than 40 in a Meren deck is too few. The nice thing about creatures is that Golgari has a LOT of creature synergies, I love using Lurking Predators or Heartwood Storyteller.

If you want more specific help feel free to ask!

Jund_Machinist on Breya, Doomsday Dominatrix

1 year ago

The main lines for the deck seem to be to either keep the Doomsday tech in or go with Underworld Breach and a package that supports it. Cards I'm looking at include:

Brain Freeze to combo with Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond, plus Wheel of Fortune etc.

Sevinne's Reclamation since it allows Intuition to directly tutor the previous combo in regardless of choice with Sevinne's, Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond.

Final Fortune seems really powerful.

Opposition Agent and Dauthi Voidwalker stronk.

Draw dorks: Ledger Shredder, Faerie Mastermind, Esper Sentinel, also Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff.

For more protection, Ranger-Captain of Eos and Orcish Bowmasters

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer seems meh unless in your opener.

Smothering Tithe cool, but 4 mana.

An Offer You Can't Refuse, Strix Serenade, Minor Misstep, Mindbreak Trap, Dress Down

capwner on Oops, All Bugs!! 2: Electric Bugaloo

1 year ago

Thanks SufferFromEDHD! Yeah Songs of the Damned is a pretty core part of our gameplan here :) I've never built belcher in EDH before so this was fun, I'd like to try a 4 or 5 color list sometime. I saw one on here that looked cool where you used 5c Sisay to tutor Inventors' Fair to tutor the Belcher. I think 5c could be a lot of fun just because you could run a lot more mdfc land and build it more like a normal deck. I am also playing around with an idea for a budget version of this deck that uses The Chain Veil to grist ult same turn and kill without needing the Yawgmoth's Will or Lion's Eye Diamond, the main cost for the deck. Thanks for checking out the list :)

legendofa on Help with turbo excruciator

1 year ago

On turn 2? Mana rocks, rituals, and tutors. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Jeweled Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Entomb + Reanimate if you want to try the reanimator route.

Obligatory disclaimer that I'm not a high-level EDH player, but K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth needs 4 mana minimum to cast, and you need to get Doomsday Excruciator into your hand without mulliganing to uselessness. It's going to take a lot of resources to get them out even semi-regularly.

hejtmane on All the combos

1 year ago

If you want busted Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze yea yes I know $$$ and way to busted

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.