Merciless Executioner

Creature — Orc Warrior

When Merciless Executioner enters the battlefield, each player sacrifices a creature.

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
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

DreadKhan on Meren Sacrifice Shenanigans

1 week 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!

DreadKhan on Rachel's Liesa Commander Deck

2 months ago

It's about as fun as having a 'kick each other in the nuts' competition for game night, but I feel like this Commander would benefit from some stuff like Merciless Executioner, Plaguecrafter, and Accursed Marauder. The idea is you just play one of the many variants on the theme (there are many more), sacrificing itself each time, and then get it back to play again next turn. I had to limit myself in my Meren list to only 3 of them (and no Grave Pact enchantments), but depending on your play group it could be a significant inclusion.

Snap157 on Budget Meren

4 months ago

Meren as a commander really pushes you to build with a high density of creatures-which are currently only a third of your deck. In this case I would cut most of your non-creature ramp for cheap mana dorks (Somberwald Sage, Arbor Elf, Fyndhorn Elves, maybe even Viridian Emissary, Solemn Simulacrum or Springbloom Druid).

I would also do the same with your other critical deck areas such as removal, draw, boardwipes, sac outlets. I would cut Alesha's Legacy, Overwhelming Remorse, and Putrefy in favor of Merciless Executioner, Insidious Fungus, Grist, the Hunger Tide, Foundation Breaker, and Acidic Slime. Also with more creatures gives us better tutor options: Fauna Shaman is worth the money here, and Jarad's Orders is super efficient. Mausoleum Secrets is kinda cool but it only grabs black creatures which I don't like- up to you if you want to keep it.

Drawing cards is overrated in this deck- your hand IS your graveyard. I would lose the Village Rites, Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, Bastion of Remembrance and Disciple of Bolas to bring in cards like Golgari Thug, Stitcher's Supplier, Skull Prophet, or Satyr Wayfinder. Nyx Weaver and Golgari Grave-Troll are an absolute must.

Not sure terastadon belongs here, as much as I love it. It's nice as a reanimation target but meren will have trouble bringing it back and the deck isn't ramp heavy enough to reliably have the mana to cast it. Instead, maybe a Skullwinder or Junji, the Midnight Sky to give you some added recursion.

You may want to also add in about 5 cheap nonbasics. Temple of Malady, Woodland Cemetery, Dakmor Salvage, Tainted Wood, Twilight Mire, Viridescent Bog, Necroblossom Snarl are all very solid choices. Lands entering tapped won't be a super large issue if you stick to 5 or so but you will definitely notice the mana smoothing and appreciate it.

Hope this helps!

DreadKhan on Why is WotC Reducing the …

10 months ago

While I think tutoring can be fine in Commander, but I'm pretty sure most groups would prefer limited tutoring in decks if they could vote on it (and I say this as a person who has multiple tutor based decks, including 2 'tutor in the CZ' decks). VERY few groups outside cEDH are fine with consistently ending games turn 4, most people would openly say that people who play that way (without being open about it!) are the biggest problem the format has, ymmv.

Tutors have a BIG effect on competitive play, arguably one of the biggest, tons of cEDH decks used to run one way to win the game, and they'd run tutors to find it (then we got Breach among other things). Tutors let decks be way more 'all in' on something like Ad Naus (or Flash back in the day) because they could count on finding it early consistently. For more casual games, every tutor you include is a card that 'does nothing', meaning you're only running 98 cards in the 99 if you run a Demonic Tutor, thus a higher percentage of your deck will have to be staples, because 'you always run the staples'. The less tutors you use the more likely you are to have a unique deck, in part because you are less likely to be combo dependent.

I hope this doesn't seem too disagreeable, but I don't know how you can argue Commander doesn't have some fairly strict rules about decks... I have multiple Stax decks, I understand I have to mention that before I play with those decks (outside cEDH), same with my Chaos/Wipes deck, this is why my Meren deck shaved a BUNCH of Merciless Executioner family cards (and avoided Grave Pact stuff), it was too consistently 'doing the thing', at which point nobody was having fun anymore, now I can just sit down and play with the deck.

I agree that part of improving most Commander decks is increasing their consistency (many popular decks are shockingly inconsistent, even with tutors Commander is a nuts format to play), but I think most people who give into their inner Chaos Goblin end up having a lot more fun playing Commander (but they're also more likely to be up until 3AM because their pod is terrible at winning games).

TLDR Tutoring has it's place in competitive play, but I think most people prefer to play Commander in a less competitive manner. Most pods would be happier if people only ran bad tutors, or just skipped them.

Amuneth on The Dark Lord Rises

11 months ago

Replacements from Precon

Mountain => Mount Doom

Mountain => Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress

Swamp => Barad-dur

Boon of the Wish-Giver => March from the Black Gate

Bitter Downfall => Bedevil

Deep Analysis => Call of the Ring

Goblin Dark-Dwellers => Dimir Signet

Goblin Cratermaker => Izzet Signet

Guttersnipe => Mauhur, Uruk-hai Captain

Inferno Titan => Rakdos Signet

Monstrosity of the Lake => Spiteful Banditry

Siege-Gang Commander => The Balrog, Durin's Bane

Summons of Saruman => Chromatic Lantern

Troll of Khazad-dum => Sauron, the Dark Lord

Voracious Fell Beast => Saruman's Trickery

Merciless Executioner => Fall of Cair Andros

DreadKhan on Edh options

1 year ago

He's not heavily played, but Kresh the Bloodbraided can do some absolutely nutso things when he's big enough, and the deck often has some control elements (especially vs creatures, the deck wants to kill off everything but Kresh typically). It can be built on a budget (for Casual play) or as a High Power deck. On a budget you run all of the Merciless Executioner effects you can find, and at higher power you'll still run a bunch of them, but you'll also have Dictate of Erebos effects. Rite of the Raging Storm by itself turns Kresh into a huge body, and it's easy to include lots of Flings/Chandra's Ignition/Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord to win, but you can also use stuff like Mandate of Abaddon to wipe the board and one-shot someone, there are a TON of cards that play very well with Kresh, and people probably aren't familiar with the deck at this point.

Another option might be Azorius Control, Azorius is a great pair for wipes, removal and countermagic, meaning you can deal with problems, both for yourself as well as the table. I guess you might go something like Shorikai, Genesis Engine and play any vehicles that don't suck? You can freely wipe your pilots without risking your vehicles, even without things like Teferi's Protection. The card draw Shorikai offers can really help you dig, and it synergizes with untap effects.

My final idea would be something like Sauron, the Dark Lord, Grixis gives you a lot of control options, and Sauron makes you a big honking army very readily, and fwiw you can make an evasive Changeling (like Changeling Outcast) your Army in place of a token. Grixis struggles a bit vs certain types of permanents, but you can certainly pressure people and have input as to what stays around.

Oh yeah, just thought of a bad idea I've never gotten around to testing, but you might be able to build Optimus Prime, Hero  ^Flip with all the Jeskai wipes you can find? Optimus can 'survive' a wipe, so as long as you can give him Haste somehow you can swing each turn vs a cleared board, wiping whenever anyone gets anything relevant out. Would it be obnoxious? Incredibly so. But I think it could work, especially since you have Red for various good Haste sources. You probably need lots of things to protect Optimus from Swords effects, including a smattering of Blue counters that are either free or cost {U} so you can hold them up.

Taking a look at other people's ideas, I support Karazikar and Breena, both seem like great fits!

Azoth2099 on 100 cards for Meren

1 year ago

The_Ush

Fleshbags, my friend. You need Fleshbags.

Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, Demon's Disciple, Plaguecrafter, Gravelighter & Phyrexian Delver. Sac them to their own Ability to control the board and pumping Experience Counters at the same time. Lifeline & Grimoire of the Dead could also be great, if you decide to go that route.

Crow_Umbra on Smeagol will guide you | **Primer v2.0**

2 years ago

Hi there, thank you for reaching out. I hope my suggestions will be helpful, but here are some things I noticed when I took a look at your deck:

• I know that your commander can steal opponents' lands, but I think you are kind of low on your own land count. Personally, I would suggest bumping up to 35-36, especially since your average cmc is closer to 3.

• I think you can cut Voracious Fell Beast all together, or replace it with something like Fleshbag Marauder, Plaguecrafter, or Merciless Executioner for a cheaper version of a similar effect.

• Gnawing Vermin can likely be replaced by a ramp spell like Three Visits, Nature's Lore, Farseek, or Rampant Growth. Its effect isn't super impactful, even as a sacrifice target.

• You can probably swap out Fall of Gil-galad and Oath of the Grey Host for a couple more effects that let you sacrifice your own creatures like Ashnod's Altar, Plumb the Forbidden, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, or Phyrexian Altar, depending on your budget.

• I would recommend swapping out Rampaging Brontodon with Tireless Provisioner, Scute Swarm, or Tireless Tracker. All are lower on the mana curve, and still work with the landfall stuff you want to do.

• Depending on your budget, you can likely swap Butcher of Malakir out for Bastion of Remembrance, Poison-Tip Archer, Grave Pact, or Dictate of Erebos. The enchantments are a bit more resistant to removal and board wipes than creatures, and all options are lower on your mana curve to come down sooner.

If you haven't already, I would recommend checking out EDHREC's page on Smeagol, Helpful Guide, here are the pages for a Sacrifice themed deck and a more Landfall focused deck. These pages can give you an idea of which effects overlap between the two strats, and what might be within your budget.

I hope these suggestions were helpful.