Miren, the Moaning Well

Legendary Land

: Add to your mana pool.

, , Sacrifice a creature: You gain life equal to the sacrificed creature's toughness.

Discussion (51)

SideBae on Chainer - Necrotic Ooze and Worldgorger Dragon

1 month ago

This list looks really good. I have a few thoughts:

With regard to combo packages, you generally want to use pieces that can be valuable on their own, while taking as few card-slots as possible. I highly suggest only leaving in the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and the Worldgorger Dragon combos. I say this because the other combos require more cards that are dead on their own and/or cost too much mana. Leaving in just two combos, which have some interchangeable parts, means you have more slots for disruption, the deck is more consistent, and the average power of each top-deck you get increases.

You may want to consider haste-enabling reanimation magic, since you can use it to combo off without needing your general on the table. In general, the more you can combo off independent of your commander, the more frequently you'll win; people know 'kill on sight' generals, and can generally keep them off the table. Some spells to consider are: Corpse Dance (stacking the creatures you Buried Alive so Necrotic Ooze is on top of your 'yard), Shallow Grave (same stack) and Torrent of Souls . Obviously, this is a secondary method, but it's worth considering running one of these spells.

Your opponents are going to hate on you pretty hard (as people hate on all combo decks), so counter-disruption is going to be necessary. By Force is a powerful way to knock out Grafdigger's Cage , Nihil Spellbomb and similar stuff. Enchantment-based hate is a lot more difficult to deal with in Rakdos; I suggest using Engineered Explosives and/or Blast Zone to deal with cards like Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace .

Your manabase is good, but I see some room for improvement. I think High Market is probably better than Miren, the Moaning Well as a sac-outlet, simply because it costs a bunch of mana to activate Miren, the Moaning Well . I may be missing something, but I don't think Piranha Marsh and Sunscorched Desert are very good here. I suggest running basic Mountain s and Swamp s instead.

If you craft your manabase carefully, you can run some pretty disruptive nonbasic land hate. Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon are both big hosers in EDH, and Ruination ain't bad either.

I think you're also running two to three too many lands. You're running the best two-mana rocks, but running some of the slightly-less-awesome ones instead of a few lands can let you ramp to cast your general turn three. Mind Stone , Fellwar Stone and Coldsteel Heart are all good in addition to your Sol Ring , Talisman of Indulgence , etc.

Finally, red has some pretty great hate cards. Pretty much every deck searches at some point, so Stranglehold is a great card (that also occasionally hoses Narset, Enlightened Master decks). Price of Glory is good as a deterrent to countermagic. Depending on your meta, Flashfires , Boil and Omen of Fire can all end games -- I'm not sure what dork at R and D make Boil and Omen of Fire instants, but he deserves a high five.

Right. That's all I got. Good luck man! Hope this helps.

Osbert on Vilis Mono Black Commander

3 months ago

Mono black decks can take advantage of some very specific cards: Jet Medallion , Caged Sun , and Contamination (if you're feeling spikey), Cabal Ritual , and Bubbling Muck . The rituals hurt a lot less due to Villis's amazing ability to draw cards. Heartless Summoning is also a fantastic creature ramp card when your deck is composed primarily of large creatures like demons, however it prevents you from keeping x/1 creatures around. In my opinion it is VERY worth it because there is little difference between an 8/8 and a 7/7 but saving 2 mana on every creature makes a huge impact.

Mindslicer makes everyone hell bent but you will often pull ahead with Villis afterward so it could be a decent include.

Villis costs ALOT of mana and adding commander tax to that makes it crippling so I suggest including some ways to cheat him into play through reanimiation or other tricks. Geode Golem and Command Beacon can get Villis out of the command zone much sooner than normal and you can abuse Black's amazing reanimation spells to cheat him into play more efficiently than returning him to the command zone. Chainer, Dementia Master , Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead , Reanimate (also draws you 8 cards after he enters!!), Strands of Night , there are so many more I haven't listed.

Loxodon Warhammer is a fantastic equipment that serves multiple purpose by giving your flying demons trample and the much desires lifelink. This also turns Villis into a 2 hit commander damage killer making it even a win condition.

Including some quality sacrifice outlets feels like a must in a mono black deck because you are always playing with the grave. High Market and Miren, the Moaning Well are great sac outlets in land slots. Ashnod's Altar , Phyrexian Altar , Spawning Pit and Dimir House Guard are also good option that can serve multiple purposes.

iNinjy on Life

4 months ago

Miren, the Moaning Well , Blind Obedience , Defiant Bloodlord and Exsanguinate are some fun life gain cards

SaberTech on The Wild Hunt

5 months ago

Karn's abilities only work on artifacts. Are you running Liquimetal Coating or Mycosynth Lattice in your paper list?

You honestly don't need any other wizard other than Marchesa for the Sage to be worth including. It's worth it just on its own as protection for Marchesa and it comes with the bonus of turning extra +1+1 counters on a creature into cards.

My build was heavily focused on sacrificing my own cards for value. I like building grindy, synergistic decks so I was using Carrion Feeder for it's ability to sac my stuff and didn't really care about how big it got to use as an attacker. The counters it gave itself just made it harder to remove when Marchesa was on the board.

I know I ran a lot of ways to use my life total as a resource, so Noxious Gearhulk 's lifegain was actually useful for when I wanted to bulk up some life to sink into something like Necropotence or Toxic Deluge . Pretty sure I also ran Miren, the Moaning Well as another way to gain some life as well.

VaalVanir on The Pie Raker's Army

5 months ago

ChibiNature Thank you for you fast response.

I've also been running a small 'flicker' toolkit in this deck with the following cards: Cloudshift , Justiciar's Portal , Momentary Blink , Stonehorn Dignitary , Zealous Conscripts .

I don't really like Stonehorn Dignitary all that much, but I haven't thought of a replacement yet.

Zealous Conscripts is great in that it steals ANY permanent (Planeswalker, Enchantment, ... and especially opponent's special lands). I pair this with High Market that I fetch with Weathered Wayfarer . Miren, the Moaning Well might work but it takes 3 colorless to activate it... too expensive.

Turns out I like the instant resolve of flicker effects better than the ones that come back at End phase such as Otherworldly Journey .

shwanerz88 on The Safari Zone

5 months ago

I really like your list here, but there is definitely some good new cards that would fit well in this list. Rhythm of the Wild , Ilharg, the Raze-Boar , and Guardian Project all fit well in creature heavy decks. I would also suggest butting in some sacrifice utility to make sure Protean Hulk dies, best one I could suggest without effecting the list would be Miren, the Moaning Well or Diamond Valley , Altar of Bone (or any of the Altars, Birthing Pod . Really cool list, hope I was able to help.

Trolldier_of_Fortune on H͟E̤̜̓̓ͬ͟ ̟̯͟C̸̙̻̙͂O͓̻͓̹̱Mͦ̾ͫ҉̬̘͕E͔͐͗̋͊̓̚S̮͖ͨ͌ͭ̏̃͊

5 months ago

COLORLESS IS BEST COLOR

Really though, no worries about the essay. I like when people take the time to give well-reasoned feedback honestly, and if you saw the description you know I can get pretty long-winded as well. And I'm about to.

Glad to see you have the good taste to realize which Kozilek is really best. Annihilator is just brutal, and I adore it. Also, Butcher does have a lot more consistent draw, and while Kozilek, the Great Distortion can draw more in one cast, you can't Strionic Resonator his cast trigger.

The price listed on here is mostly due to price spikes and generally high-balled prices on here. I don't think I've put as much as $1000 even into this deck, merely a lot of time, some good trades, and a few very well timed purchases (good lord am I glad I went for the Mana Crypt when it was down to $70.)

The reason I haven't really gone for any stax is because honestly, my meta's not a huge fan of such effects. I've considered the Orbs, absolutely, but frankly I'm not going to be the one to start another arms race in my group. That said, Torpor Orb really should find a slot, because literally the only thing it stops in here is Solemn Simulacrum , which while unfortunate, is definitely an acceptable loss given what it DOES stop. My stance on said stax effects could change, given I move to another, more cutthroat meta or my current one powercreeps to the point where I absolutely must slot the Orbs and such in. You're not wrong in your assessment there by any means though.

Urzatron has only ever been assembled like, once in this deck, so I probably could ditch it for more useful utility lands. And a Strip Mine . I don't know how the hell I haven't added one of those by now either. An older version of this list actually did run Miren, the Moaning Well as well, but I ended up moving it to my Kokusho deck as I only have the one at the moment. I'll see about getting some new things slotted in there.

I like Key to the City as a way to grant unblockable. Usually I could care less about the draw trigger, though I do use it when I feel I can. Batterskull could be cut honestly, I kind of rush slotted that in over Planar Bridge because I noticed that with Bridge all I ever did was go digging for Paradox Engine and a way to go infinite and barf my deck onto the table, and honestly that got boring for me. Ashnod's Altar could lead to some silly shenanigans, I'll have to see about getting at least one of those. Mirrorworks is actually a card I've been on the fence about myself. Like, sometimes it's a dead cast that doesn't get a lot done, sometimes I get dual Monoliths and have all the mana, all the time. It'll probably go when I get my hands on one of those sweet new Ugins honestly, because I NEED HIM HE'S GREAT HOLY CRAP. I've also considered Staff of Domination here, but I'm not sure if it would be too powerful or not. Might test that out. Memory Jar is a card I've used a bit in my Hanna deck, and it's obscenely good with her recursion. I assume it would be great here, I just need to get another.

Always nice to hear from someone else who knows just how damn fun colorless is. I wish you good luck and lots of fast mana opening hands.

Wurwilf on H͟E̤̜̓̓ͬ͟ ̟̯͟C̸̙̻̙͂O͓̻͓̹̱Mͦ̾ͫ҉̬̘͕E͔͐͗̋͊̓̚S̮͖ͨ͌ͭ̏̃͊

5 months ago

Colorless is the best color. I'm always happy to see someone else playing the best Kozilek. And with a pretty dang good budget too, wow. I did my best to read the comments, but I can't promise I won't repeat some of their suggestions.

Can I talk you into some stax? Our precious artifact babies need all the protection from evil Merciless Eviction 's and nasty Bane of Progress es. I know that the primary strategy for dealing with the main artifact-destroyers at the table is to hit them hard and fast, but that won't happen every time. Shut down those pesky forests with Winter Orb . Slow down those speedy decks with Tangle Wire (seriously though, this card is the nuts). Torpor Orb can't hurt either. A well timed Kozilek into Static Orb gets the Ws almost immediately.

Do you ever get much value out of the Urza lands? Miren, the Moaning Well is solid because sac outlets are good stuff. Deserted Temple is a budget Candelabra. Scavenger Grounds can save your butt against graveyard shenanigans. And dude, where's your Strip Mine ?

I infer from your list that you enjoy the smashy side of this deck, while I prefer the speedy combo assembly aspect of Kozi. I understand Fireshrieker 's value of one-shotting some poor sap, but Batterskull seems a little too low value, as does Key to the City . I fill those slots with ways to get Kozi back in my hand/command zone, like Ashnod's Altar and Erratic Portal .

How much value do you get from Mirrorworks ? I felt it was a little too slow and cut it from my list a while back. A 5 drop I'm currently interesting in trying out is Memory Jar . Another I'm on the cusp of purchasing is Staff of Domination , because everyone says it's amazing. If you're ever interested in yet another ramp artifact, Kyren Toy is delightfully weird. I'm pretty hype for Newgin , too.

You're doing God's work, colorless player, keep it up. Really fantastic list. Sorry for the essay.