Protean Hulk

Creature — Beast

When Protean Hulk dies (is put into the graveyard from the battlefield), search your library for any number of creature cards with total converted mana cost/mana value 6 or less and put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.

Combos

• High Market + Protean Hulk

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
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

DreadKhan on 100 cards for Meren

1 week ago

I would look into stuff like Diligent Farmhand, Dawntreader Elk, Yavimaya Granger, Burnished Hart and maybe Fertilid, each of these not only finds a land for you, they will die for your Meren, meaning she can recycle them if you still want more mana for some reason. I think these creatures are much more synergistic than your mana artifacts. There are also cards like Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf that will also find a land but these require a sac outlet.

If you want to add a fairly strong card, Sidisi, Undead Vizier is a really good repeatable tutor (I usually sacrifice her to herself and reanimate her). There are flashier cards like Razaketh, the Foulblooded or Protean Hulk, either should win very quickly if they end up in play, but Sidisi is a bit lower to the ground, and the ability to find anything with no real drawback (and the ability to repeat it) makes this worse Diabolic Tutor very strong. If you want a cheaper version that has huge political potential (you can get a desired effect out of someone else's deck) you might like Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire.

NV_1980 on The Spirits Return

4 months ago

With this many creatures in your deck, each with a particular function, it's starting to look a bit like a toolbox. I'd recommend adding some tutors so that you can more easily find what you're looking for (please note: I recognize some of these might be outside your budget, but this post is also meant to help other people who would like to use your deck): Brutalizer Exarch, Captain Sisay, Corpse Connoisseur, Fauna Shaman, Fiend Artisan, Protean Hulk, Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

5 months 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!

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Card creation challenge

8 months ago

Persistent Necromancer {5}{B}{B}

Planeswalker

Morbib - This spell costs {X} less to cast, where is the total number of creatures that have died this turn.

+1 Mill three cards. If you milled at least one creature card this way, gain 2 life.

-6 Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

4

---

Create a piñata creature, i.e. a creature that gives you multiple creatures or tokens when it dies. For examples, look at Protean Hulk, Hooded Hydra and similar cards.

Icaruskid on DINA 4 LIFE

9 months ago

Hey I'm just getting to know how to play Dina but I've been playing Golgari Combo for a while. One card that might help you have another consistent way to go off is Chain of Smog. I'm also a fan of Protean Hulk. Here's my list so you can see how they work. Also you can visit edhrec.com and search up Dina and click combos to check out other combos you might like. Hope this helps!

InfinityConcept on Thrasios and Tymna - TnT cEDH PRIMER *2-STEP'N*

10 months ago

11/11/22 - there no more Protean Hulk combo

DreadKhan on Meren of Clan Nel Toth

11 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!

DreadKhan on Meren, currently

1 year ago

There is also Necrotic Ooze, Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion (or Walking Ballista) which will just kill everyone as long as you have some MV in your deck left. I think you can assemble this combo pretty easily with Buried Alive or some self-mill. I use Gravecrawler/Feeder/Plunderer myself, and I dig them out with Protean Hulk, which can then generate infinite Experience for Meren, making it possible for her to reanimate it for you to find a payoff for death or etb.

Hulk can also dig out Disciple of the Vault, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Lesser Masticore and Viscera Seer or Feeder, which will just win on the spot usually. I will say, you do have to target with Disciple, so you can get blanked if someone has protection of some kind, so I don't use this combo myself, but it seems solid (if low on redundancy). It might be worth mentioning, but your Mazirek is very useful with any Persist creatures, since Mazirek can put a +1 counter on one if you have 2 you can sacrifice separately, this will go infinite with any free sac outlet, like Viscera Seer.

If you use Hulk, there is Activated Sleeper, or Phyrexian Delver which can extend your Hulk's lifespan to dig out more stuff. I'm pretty sure there are a few more out there, but I think Sleeper is the best.

I'm guessing you're not really looking for cEDH type stuff, but if you want really spicy stuff, I could direct you to very strong Meren lists you can get ideas from. I have a Meren deck that's roughly High Power atm, able to be extremely harsh to the board but also able to combo off fairly quickly/consistently if I want to. Nel Toth Community College and Round Table is the list, which has the cards sorted into custom piles to make it easier to understand (debatable if that was a success, you can switch it at the top of the decklist). Key points I'd suggest you consider is running tons of non-artifact, non-spell ramp, mostly creature based, enough to shave lands down at least somewhat, and an emphasis on small creatures that can either sacrifice themselves or something else. I would also suggest finding ways to substitute everything else with creatures, Meren really wants to have access to creatures and sac outlets, so stuff like Dockside Chef and Skullport Merchant can be better than other, non-creature options (other than busted ones like Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and Altar of Dementia that are just amazing). I even run Lurking Predators to just dump creatures onto the board, usually as sacrifice fodder, because I have over 50 creatures in the deck, it's very possible to get more than 2 creatures in a cycle.

Hope some of this helps!