Rise of the Dread Marn

Instant

Create X 2/2 black Zombie Berserker creature tokens, where X is the number of nontoken creatures that died this turn (was put into the graveyard from the battlefield).

Foretell {B} (During your turn, you may pay {2} and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

Tokens

• Zombie Berserker 2/2 B

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (29)

legendofa on Varina Peanut Butter

3 months ago

Profet93 Most of the combos here are based around sacrificing Gravecrawler to Phyrexian Altar to generate {B}, then using that {B} to recast Gravecrawler from the graveyard to be sacrificed again. The third card in each of the combos provides the payoff through a "whenever a creature dies" trigger like Diregraf Captain, "whenever a creature enters" trigger like Wayward Servant, or counting the number of time a creature dies (in this case, as many as you want) with Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant or Rise of the Dread Marn.

The Ashnod's Altar + Gravecrawler + Rooftop Storm combo provides infinite {C}. Similar to above, you sacrifice Crawler to Altar to create {C}{C}. Here, though, Rooftop Storm allows you to graveyard-cast Crawler for free, so you don't spend any resources to generate mana.

Goldberserkerdragon I've learned that very few times things are truly self-evident, and what's obvious to one person can be obscure to someone else. It's all a matter of experience.

Balaam__ on Tails from the Crypt

11 months ago

Thanks for posting, IHATENAMES. I don’t think I follow your reasoning for some of the suggestions. I imagine I’m missing something, but wouldn’t Chatterstorm or Rise of the Dread Marn just create a bunch of tokens? This is a viable win strategy, true, but that’s what the main combo engine already does (infinite flying bat tokens).

Vile Redeemer offers infinite colorless mana when coupled with the engine, so I suppose there’s value there in case a boardwipe happens, but feels a bit redundant. I’d need guaranteed access to {C} as well. That could pose problems. But I’ll add that one to the maybeboard, it has potential.

I don’t think Body Launderer or Death's Oasis are a good fit at all, not without a complete rework. I’d have to either drop a color or try to add a third color too, which has its own issues.

IHATENAMES on Tails from the Crypt

11 months ago

Suggestions:

Look at upgrading the plan. I like Enduring renewal but having a win with it seems difficult. Maybe a storm card or 2 can help this. Say Chatterstorm perhaps maybe a way to abuse many creatures dying A few ideas:

Vile Redeemer and Body Launderer and Rise of the Dread Marn and Death's Oasis seem the most interesting to me.

jarncards on Dead WOMan Walking

1 year ago

Fiend Artisan is green

I think Sidisi, Undead Vizier is awful unless you use a lot of reanimate effects, it's just so expensive to tutor. Geth, Lord of the Vault is crazy strong, but he's a totally different deck most of the time. I'd dump Liliana's Steward too. You and one other player go down a card, putting the rest of the table ahead of you by one card, but they also get to choose, so you're never going to get the card you want out of their hand.

Hobbling Zombie and other cards like it, like Putrid Goblin are excellent at keeping attacks away from you while you build up your board. and the pseudo revival effects let you abuse a lot of other zombie mechanics. Butcher Ghoul, and Geralf's Messenger or Doomed Dissenter are ok too. i wouldnt use Sightless Ghoul though. They are all better than Reassembling Skeleton though. Keep Relentless Dead. Im not sure if they make the cut, but they arent scary, but that means they are good at keeping a target off your back til youre readyfor one.

Magus of the Bridge is great for a non-zombie. Probably use it over Tainted Adversary, i feel like that one just costs way too much before its good. Dreadhorde Invasion is incredibly good, as is Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. i'd put those in for sure.Tormod, the Desecrator is still really good. Zombie Trailblazer is devastating to the person sitting to your left in particular or anyone playing five colors/ not black. When you REALLY need someone to not cast a spell. make all their lands swamps during the upkeep. almost every board wipe is a sorcery.

I think you might want to dump Thought Vessel for Mind Stone or even Blood Pet. In many cases discarding is beneficial to zombies. If you want to keep infinite hand size, Zombie Infestation and discard at will cards are pretty helpful.

I think Noxious Ghoul is the single best zombie card in the game, in this deck it basically says, tap your commander, wipe everyone else's boards. Use it.

Sutured Ghoul is runner up. If you include it and other high power zombies like Rotting Regisaur you can put him out as a 20+/xx easily, and then get 2/2s. HE doesnt play nice with mass reanimate, but he's an alternate win condition on his own. also its a great tool since youre probably gonna sac the dino and Phyrexian Soulgorger pretty quickly. If you sacrifice him on the end step before your turn i think you will almost always have a game ending horde.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is utterly stupid. The absolute best reanimate target you could hope for. and since your card draw is gonna cost a ton of life, hes always going to be valuable. Whip of Erebos is probably the only other reasonable lifegain choice.That one makes aggressive attacking suddenly super safe

Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia is really cheap at making zombies if you dont have any other sources of decayed zombs. they cant block, but you get so many death triggers

Graveborn Muse is great card draw.

Hatred is usually better than Endless Scream

I think Gempalm Polluter is fantastic. its card draw, puts a big zombie into your graveyard, and hurts a player if things are going well.

I don't think Endless Ranks of the Dead is that great, but it certainly is cool. Wand of Orcus is really cool too. I'm not sure if its good though.

Board wipes will shut you down as you have things right now. Crowded Crypt and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, that way, even if there's a board wipe you still have a whole army of zombs to multiply even after everything is dead. Rise of the Dread Marn is another fantastic option that you can abuse if you run things like Carrion Feeder too. Run Carrion Feeder, period. It lets you loop gravecrawler and saves yourself from control magic and exile spells.

Consider Toxic Deluge and STRONGLY CONSIDER Nevinyrral's Disk. Single target removal like tragic slip is ok because you can choose when things die, but other cards like Malicious Affliction are going to miss a lot of key targets. And you absolutely need to have a way to clear artifacts and especially enchantments.

Dark Salvation is pretty cool. not sure if it is good enough, but i'd use it rather than some of your spot removal.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General is really absurdly strong if you can get it out, and even if it dies the next turn you can draw a bunch off of it. Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip you already know is great.

If you diversify your black lands, Field of the Dead is the best land. its silly how good it is. I'll start you off with the autoinclude Unholy Grotto. Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip is too.

I'll see what you make and see if i find anything else. later

DreadKhan on Sacrificial Deer Two the Cat

1 year ago

I feel like stuff like Make an Example or Do or Die can kill a ton of creatures (or people's very important ones), it's pricier but Phyrexian Purge can clear a bunch of stuff out, it's very good with Sangromancer fwiw. Not sure if it's too pricey, but Vona's Hunger can clear a ton of opponent's stuff out for you. I could be wrong, but I think Necromantic Selection is absolutely hilarious with your Commander, you can just choose your Commander and you get a treasure for each creature that died, including your Commander. Rise of the Dread Marn is maybe good enough.

Rite of the Raging Storm should probably be considered, it'll give you a treasure almost guaranteed each of your turns, and hits only opponents on each opponent's turn. It's also budget atm, it might go up. Rite is very good with Mask of Griselbrand, a card that is better than it looks in my experience.

Nettlecyst might be decent? It's bigger than Cranial Plating, but you can't move it at instant speed, maybe still good?

If you can get enough tokens out, Kyren Negotiations can let them ping opponents you can't swing at.

Not sure you need another, but Sifter of Skulls is another Pawn of Ulamog. Both like Bog Initiate in my experience.

If you like reanimation, there is Hell's Caretaker, which can turn a token into any creature in your graveyard. Not sure if other people in your area play graveyard decks, but Callous Bloodmage is a nice solution to such decks that also can be used to generate a card or a Pest.

It's probably as cheap as it'll get, but Grim Hireling is both great with Treasures in general, but also can generate them for you, especially if you have evasive creatures. In reference to Treasure generation, there is also Academy Manufactor, a very good card if you want potential life gain/card draw when you generate treasures.

DreadKhan on Meren NON combo Grind

2 years ago

Have you thought about running more 1 drops that ramp? Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, Elves of Deep Shadow and even Birds of Paradise are all very good cards in most Meren decks. I also like Blood Pet and Dawntreader Elk. I even use Fertilid atm, probably could replace it with something better though. I feel like a Meren deck should be gaining as much XP as possible early game, if you can recycle a Sakura Tribe Elder (or similar card) a few times, you might have the most mana out as well as have respectable XP, so I feel like running lots of creatures that find lands and die on their own is a good choice. I run 30 lands in my Meren deck, and I made a point of testing how little fixing mattered in a deck like Meren, sure enough it's not remotely picky. It's 2 colours, and if you've got a heap of ways to use Green mana to get access to Black, you really only need as many Swamps as you expect to fetch out in a game. I think this is especially true if you decide to trim a few lands for 1 drop ramp creatures, you can't keep hands without Green, but can keep a hand without a Swamp just fine if you can find one via a ramp creature (or generate Black via one). Higher land count is better if you really expect to see lots of wipes (you should run Rise of the Dread Marn if that's true), but if players only run a few per deck you might not see one early enough to matter. More competitive decks tend to run fewer wipes (and more combos), but more counters/removal, since they don't usually want to lose their own board. If you're playing against fairly competitive (but not cEDH) opponents, I'd go with the dorks, if you play vs Casual decks, you might want the lands! Sorry if that's confusing, but hopefully it helps.

Ohran Frostfang is really good in grindier Meren decks. Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is good if your deck consistently is sacrificing stuff (and even better if other people sacrifice stuff in your games). Fiend Artisan is a sac outlet that can tutor up creatures, and it can be big enough to swing with sometimes. Helm of Possession is a really sneaky old card that you don't see much, but it combines a sac outlet with a theft effect. It's a removal magnet, but it's a really strong and off-colour effect in Golgari. Coffin Queen is another weird old card that can reanimate stuff from any Graveyard, but it exiles it when it dies. This is normally bad for a combo deck, but in your build it might be fine. Old Stickfingers might be worth a look, very good at putting lots of creatures into your yard without dumping other cards you might want. Dawnstrider is a nice card if you play vs lots of attackers, this is a fog that won't use up your Meren reanimation, and it also lets you discard creatures to reanimate, so it has a pretty high ceiling in more casual Meren.

Cool deck, looks like lots of fun!

DreadKhan on Cheat Death

2 years ago

Rise of the Dread Marn is a nice instant to think about if you find yourself getting wiped periodically, B to get a board is a serious effect. It's also good if your deck can generate infinite death triggers without creating a board, this can turn infiite death triggers into an army of 2/2s for very little input.

In my creature heavy build, one of the best cards to draw into is for sure Sidisi, Undead Vizier. While paying 5 mana to diabolic tutor isn't great (and I almost always sac Sidisi to her ability), getting a 2nd activation for free at the end of my turn is almost always amazing, so she's actually 5 mana to tutor for 2 cards (and gain 2 XP), and you can repeat as often as you can reanimate her. As a body, she's a 4/6 deathtouch, so she can be relevant vs bigger creatures if you can't reanimate her for some reason. I think it's one of the best effects you can find in Meren, up there with Protean Hulk or Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and generally better than the very good Final Parting.

I can't decide if I like your choice of Whisper, or if I prefer my Hell's Caretaker. Caretaker is upkeep based, which is a huge limitation, but it's also 1:1, so your board doesn't shrink. I also like Coffin Queen to reanimate an opponent's stuff, which is exiled when you sacrifice it, and that is just a tap for effect (can target your stuff too, but it also gets exiled, so I mostly hate on opponents with it).

I love how many creatures you've fit in here, lots of fodder for Meren to work with! I also used to run Mazirek, but eventually took him out because I wanted to 'win via combo' with that deck, there are definitely times you'll be happy to have Mazirek around, he's very grindy.

griffstick on dimir zombie token engines

2 years ago

Rise of the Dread Marn is pretty darn good. Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant is also pretty darn good. paired with it its even better. Thrilling Encore for more fun