Thank you for your detailed response! I probably didn't pilot this deck as well as I should have, so I'm going to blame the first two losses on that :) I was playing a 1v1 game against the deck, and since then I've played again, netting a solid few wins following your advice. I had managed to get the Living Plane + Minister of Pain combo out and the games ended fairly quickly after that, for all intents and purposes. The last part of this is a question regarding the new Sorcerous Spyglass out. Would you consider that over Pithing Needle or no? I personally like the hand peek built in, but the needle is a possible T1. What would you say?

Shadow12721

Welcome back! Glad to hear you've been having some success with it!! :)

Re: Sorcerous Spyglass vs. Pithing Needle - Full disclosure, I have no experience yet with the Spyglass yet, so I can only offer some theorycrafting on how to choose between the two... hopefully it is helpful!

In my mind, it all comes down to how much information you have vs. how much information you need. If you have the information you need, Needle is better; if you don't, Spyglass is better.

• For threats on-the-board, Pithing Needle is obviously better choice since all the information you need is already available (on the battlefield)
• Threats in hand are either (a) those you know about, or (b) those you don't. Pithing Needle is the better choice if you already know what you need to answer before it is played or even seen. For example, if you know your opponent's deck ahead of time and are aware of a "crux" on all their combo paths (i.e. Isochron Scepter), you can simply play it proactively to shut them down ahead of time (you can often make inferences about their plans by paying attention to their plays/drops, tutors, etc). In these cases, you might not actually need to see your opponent's hand to answer their biggest threats, so Needle seems the better choice. However...
• Sorcerous Spyglass is the better choice if you don't feel you have enough information to answer threats-in-hand proactively. This might happen if you are playing against unknown decks (i.e. if you play new opponents at your LGS a lot), OR if your opponents have a variety of combos that don't share pieces between them. In these cases, you need the extra information to make the right play
• Consider, however, that if you're already paying for Spyglass and you don't know ahead of time what you want to name, it might be worth considering a more general/versatile answer such as Cursed Totem or Damping Matrix. A Pithing Needle effect is a killer precision strike against a key activated ability; but if you don't need that absolute precision, it might be better adopting a more general answer at slightly greater cost.

Deckbuilding and Playing1) What does slot selection look like for tutors vs. draw utility?2) What are your per turn aims for your game, e.g. on turn 1 I try to do this, and on turn 2 this, and on turn 3 this...?

Firestorm4056 I really like what you have done here with your decklist to make Meren Stacks competitive. I run a much more casual version of Meren Stacks which is here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/plunder-the-graves-upgrade-30-stax/ I am finding that in my meta most players just build their boardstate until around turn 5-8 which is when things really start happening however there are some competitive players that are now running some crazy turn 3-4 mill combo decks that will obliterate a player's library and take them out of the game early, as well as a couple tron decks that are now doing turn 4 and 5 kills...so my question is how can I speed this deck up? I love the flavor of Meren and would like to take her more zombie themed but I have already invested almost $600 in this deck and don't want to have to start over to be more competitive. I would however like to make some changes to speed things up as it takes a while for this deck to really get going.

spectrevr4

Not to worry! There are a lot of ways to speed things up. Looking at your list, here are a few things that I recommend:

1. 1-drop mana dorks. Enough to be consistent with them in the early game. This is the surest way to speed up your clock and put you ahead of the table. Note that cards like Farhaven Elf are repeatable... but how often do you find yourself actually doing so? In my experience the tempo off a T1 Llanowar Elves is so much better than potentially getting a second land off Farhaven Elf. Most of the 1-drop dorks are quite cheap ($$), with Birds of Paradise topping things out at $4-ish. These will not only provide you with acceleration, but also can potentially replace higher-costed slots currently in your decklist (such as Into the Wilds, which has good long-term potential, but often you've already lost by that time). Even better, on later turns, dorks are cheap enough that you can still play them AND do something else useful - whereas if you play a Farhaven Elf, chances are that's all you're doing for the turn.
2. Carefully evaluate engines that don't give you immediate return on investment. Black Market has big payoff potential but it doesn't do anything the turn it hits... there might be some other ways to build the deck that give you similar ramp but play out much quicker. Be creative, as it doesn't need to be a direct replacement. For example, Earthcraft and Cryptolith Rite are alternatives you might consider. They each cost 3 cmc less (so can be played earlier and don't take up a full mid-game turn) and make all your creatures IMMEDIATELY tap for mana (so no buildup required). With Meren + one non-dork on the board an Earthcraft is effectively free since they can immediately tap to generate two more mana. Again, the payout potential might not be as high as Black Market, but they hit a lot faster and (initially) harder.
3. Don't rely on creatures for all of your removal. In my experience, Acidic Slime was almost always just a Nature's Claim for 5x the price... and it's a dead card for quite a long time due to its high cost. You should definitely still pack creatures with removal on them, but it's worth considering the best noncreature removal too (Abrupt Decay, etc). This is especially important when you are facing combo decks - often a single well-placed removal spell throws a wrench in all of their plans.
4. How do the combo decks in your group win? Most of the mill combos I'm aware of rely heavily on artifacts, not only for the combo, but for ramping and card advantage. These types of combo decks are really, really weak to silver bullets like Null Rod, Damping Matrix, Pithing Needle, and Phyrexian Revoker. Paired with a few tutors you can land them reliably and often save the game without even having to think about much else. You already run some of the best tutors too so no real issues there! If decks are consistently winning on T3-4, then in most cases their plan is fragile to targeted removal or silver bullets. If you are running both then you will have a lot more ways to deal with these issues!
5. Answering tron is tough if you restrict yourself to engine-based creature removal. My list has actually shifted away from most of the popular "kill" engines - note that I don't have The Abyss, Magus of the Abyss, Dictate of Erebos, etc. For the most part I pack a lot of targeted removal and Fleshbag Marauder effects to solve these problems... For example, I find the efficiency of a one-time Dismember is usually far better than hassling around with getting an Attrition engine setup - you might try a similar approach! My best reasoning is the following - you'll already have enough to do with creatures and Meren (it's not like you're lacking targets), so playing spell-based removal means you can do more per turn rather than have to decide on a single choice for your Meren trigger.
6. Since we're playing stax/control, you have to take a long, hard look at every card that doesn't provide a strong boardstate advantage (card advantage, tempo, resource generation, etc) or hinder our opponents somehow. Verdurous Gearhulk stands out to me as something that doesn't really fit a "niche" - it is "good" but doesn't really play towards any plan of ours. So I question whether it is worth including. Compare him to something like Creakwood Liege, who can offer a similar boost to P/T on the board, but costs less and can generate a strong 3/3 critter each turn (to be used for combat, finisher, or sacrifice fodder).
7. I'm not a huge fan of Death Cloud personally, it's just so expensive a price to pay for a symmetric effect. Pox and Smallpox are already in your list and very cost-effective - Death Cloud has always seemed to me like it cost just too much for what it offers.
8. Clearly you are running Bitter Ordeal for a reason, and I would guess it's to answer the combos you've been facing :) I tend to prefer silver bullets like Null Rod (since they are widely useful regardless of opponent)... but if exiling combo pieces is the goal, might I suggest Sadistic Sacrament instead (sorry, card tags aren't working on this one for some reason)? It may not be the most efficient spell... but it is wicked fun to land against a combo player at the right time and a little more consistent than Bitter Ordeal :)

jeannieboef

This is something I plan to address, but haven't had the time to write up quite yet. Some of the answers you're looking for are in the replies I've made in the comments - I will add a section like this soon enough.

Thank you for such a detailed description as well as the speed of your reply.... There are some things in here I will surely play test with thanks to your suggestions. As far as how opponents are setting up mill so fast is a very interesting and frighteningly consistent design. The key pieces they are using are all about making a ton of mana and throwing it into cards like Mind Grind, and Increasing Confusion while supporting them with other cards like Brain Freeze, Traumatize, Mind Funeral, Mind Sculpt, and a bunch of Tutors and graveyard recursion for these spells. Setup usually has some sort of mana ramp such as Cabal Coffers + Crypt Ghast + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or can use some basic mana rocks like Gilded Lotus, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Thran Dynamo. By roughly turn 4 or 5 these decks are producing around 8-10 mana....and 10 mana thrown into a Mind Grind is a bad day. Most of the time they don't even worry about getting their commanders out but I have seem use of Dralnu, Lich Lord, and Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker in the most potent versions. These reasons are why I have Bitter Ordeal currently as nothing kills combo faster than removing it's pieces. Once I slow them down its a better fight but still one I haven't been able to win. I really like your idea of Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst for this situation. I had thought about the thorn before but when the time came I put in tanglewire instead. Your comments have gave me a lot to think about as well as to playtest with and for that I have to say thank you. I will have to keep you informed on my changes and how well they fare!

spectrevr4

A faster clock should help solve a lot of your problems! And based on what you said, I think you'll be well on your way to outpacing them per the suggestions above.

Spell-based mill like this usually falls flat without big mana, and big mana is usually very weak to one-off targeted removal (because it leans on mana doublers, big mana rocks, etc). A few well-placed removal spells (Nature's Claim, Abrupt Decay) paired with Null Rod and Phyrexian Revoker (naming a key mana-producing piece so they can't tap for mana) could really put them off their game. These kind of decks usually rely on momentum to win so if you can crush a key piece of the plan, it should put you in good waters. Looking at the example you gave - Crypt Ghast + Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth are fantastic if they can all be assembled together, but that usually requires a number of turns and a lot of investment (tutors) on your opponent's part. Then, if you can snipe the Crypt Ghast with a single 1-cmc Dismember, that really shuts down a huge part of their mana production (CC + Urborg alone don't make huge mana until the land counts get higher)

Personally I think that if you can get your speed/tempo up and increase your density of targeted removal, you will solve a lot of problems before they actually become problems. So, you don't have to deal with the Mind Grind directly - you can just gut their ramp strategy to make the Mind Grind a non-viable play in the first place.

Since it's easy to miss, note that Null Rod completely shuts off mana rocks, because they have "Tap" as an activation cost. So landing a fast Null Rod can totally blow out entire mana ramp strategies. I spend my first fast tutor on Null Rod in probably 30-50% of my games just because it's so strong at shutting down artifact-based ramp and combo. Then, if you can land a Winter Orb shortly thereafter (with mana dorks on the board), you're well on your way to locking everything down.

Keep us updated on how things go!

So to give you an update I did run a small 3 way game tonight with some changes done to my Meren deck against Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith and Phenax, God of Deception It came down to what I feel was a bad call where Nazahn was equipted with a bunch of equipment at the same time and I missed being able to activate my Icy Manipulator to keep it from attacking for 22 points of commander damage with Myriad which won the game. The person playing it had equipped Swiftfoot Boots as part of it's equiptment along with 4 other pieces of equiptment at the same time so it had Shroud and I couldn't tap it. Normally I would have been able to tap it in response to the equipment being equipped but due to a timing snafu and how the payer equipped everything at once I just let it go but I gotta admint I'm a little salty about it..Phenax on the other hand was completely shut out and was just collecting mana and watching the battle between me and Nazahn. The deck definately plays a lot different than it use to with the changes I made however I am still missing some of the key pieces I want to have in it to make it really speed up. I didn't get a single mana dork as a drop or Cryptolith Rite and found that the biggest amount of damage I was doing was by using Entomb + Eternal Witness + Phyrexian Altar and was constantly pulling things into my graveyard to pull them back with Meren. I was constantly running some sort of - counters to kill indestructible creatures this way which kept things at a stalemate for roughly 4 hours...for 1 match..I was just getting things really under control and could have pulled ahead within the next few rounds as I started cycling Army of the Damned + Dictate of Erebos + Phyrexian Altar and was keeping the board whiped clean...In fact I was going to tron myslef with Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger who was in my graveyard and would have been put into the battlefield on my next turn. Instead of being a tool about it though I just told the other player that next time they equip a bunch of things all a once they should instead equip them one at a time and ask if they resolve or if there are responses at each stage as a courtesy. But anyhow that was tonight's showing and I will have to continue with the changes and let you know how it evolves....I gotta say though it still seems a little clunky to me...and like it's always fighting from behind against faster decks...but maybe its just that I'm not playing it right or that it just needs more streamlining from where it is now...Here is the current list. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/plunder-the-graves-upgrade-30-stax/

spectrevr4

It will probably take some time to find the right balance. For what it's worth, looking at my (offline) changelog my current Meren decklist is on its 30th iteration. Some of those changes were small (a card or two) and some were large (10-15+ cards), but in stax/control it's all about how they work together and it can take some time to get the recipe right!

Re: Icy Manipulator - it's always seemed a little expensive up-front to me. Do you usually use it against creatures? What about something like Meekstone or Ensnaring Bridge instead? Unfortunately Bridge is creeping up in price (hopefully it will be reprinted in the next Masters set). Meekstone doesn't stop attacks but dropping one at the right time (creatures already tapped) can be great for protecting you until you can solve / lock out the board, then destroy it yourself and swing in for the win. Alternatively there are more removal options like Lignify which solve Commanders extremely well (effectively removal which doesn't even let them be recasted)

Also, keep in mind that there are just some games you can't do anything about - so always try to get a few games in before you draw any major conclusions. For example, if you don't see mana dorks in a single game, it may just be luck of the draw - but if you're consistently not seeing them early enough across many games, chances are you might need to up your dork count to hit the consistency you're looking for.

I agree that this iteration I am currently playing is going to take a little bit to get use to as it plays quite different. I also agree that luck of the draw and different match-ups will play quite differently from time to time and it is just going to take me a little bit to get use to this variant. It is however playing better and I see a potential in it that is quite exciting. I am going to make a few more changes by adding in a few more mana dorks to get better odds of setting up that mana base early. As far as Icy Manipulator I have found it quite invaluable. Especially if you get it to combo off as in Icy Manipulator + Winter Orb Tapping your own Winter orb with it on your opponents end step right before your turn is completely devastating to them as it tempos the rest of the playing field except for you. Icy Manipulator + Winter Orb was always a big thing back in the day when I was playing 4th edition but I guess it went away for a while...with the version of winter orb in eternal masters however it's text as well as it's oracle text on the gatherer says "As long as Winter Orb is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps." and they even use an example of tapping it with Glare of Subdual so it must be legal again.

Suggestions:

• Faceless Butcher - spot removal Meren style when you have a sac-outlet ready. sac the butcher in response to the ETB-effect and the exiled creatures stays away.
• Tombstone Stairwell for lots of tokens and counters for Meren.
• Eldrazi Monument. Fun with Living Plane or any other load of creatures.

How does this deck deal with ETB effects from creatures and so forth, or would you sideboard a torpor orb?

MordMetal - Sorry for the slow reply!

My first answer to your question is simply - ETB effects from creatures have not been a problem for me in the first place, and thus have not required a solution. I suspect this is because decks which rely heavily on ETB creatures are generally either (a) more casual builds and simply are not fast/efficient enough to outrace our stax and/or wincons; or (b) are other stax lists with much the same gameplan (thus, it may actually be to our benefit to keep their creatures around). So, I haven't seen a need to more directly address that class of strategies.

Also, with stax/control especially it is important to pick your battles wisely (and by this I also mean, the cards you choose to include in your list). Putting in too many silver bullets against particular strategies inevitably reduces your flexibility, resilience, and answers against the rest of the field, so it is ONLY worth including silver bullets if they substantially increase your win probability against the decks you are actually facing in the wild. In my case, Torpor Orb isn't worth the slot because (a) it doesn't really gimp any of the decks I play against, and (b) there are other ways to solve that problem without resorting to Torpor Orb. For example: enemy ETB creatures don't matter if we win before they can be abused; or if our opponents don't have the resources to play them in the first place (through tax/stax); or even simply ignoring them, if they can only delay the game, but can't actually reduce our likelihood of winning.

More generally though, it's important to state that my build is designed to be used in a varied and diverse meta and one which does not see a bunch of ETB creatures of the must-be-dealt-with variety. Every meta is different and if yours has a bunch of ETB creatures (and they require answering) then something like Torpor Orb might be the right answer for you!!

I'm excited to try this deck out.

I was playing a staxhulk combo variant of Meren for the longest time until I recently switched to Nath. Staxhulk was crushing it until flash hulk/doomsday/storm decks appeared at the table. I switched to Nath and while the build is good.. i miss meren. I feel she has a lot more control potential.

Have you encountered many fast combo decks like i listed?

Also how do you feel about the inclusion of Razaketh the foul blooded?

Hello FireStorm4056, it's been a while! With the rest of the Dominaria cards spoiled, are there any cards in particular that jump out at you?

As an update to my last post, I used your deck to heavily inspire the one i'm running now. It's still in the trial period. Below is the link.. please tell me what you think!

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/17-04-18-meren-stax/?cb=1523962438

Yeah the problem is that one of the people in my play circle run brago and the etb creatures they ran beat when I was using this deck. Granted my piloting could improve but brago sort of overwhelmed me.

Here is a gameplay question for you, what do you search for first when you are trying to end the game. Like already have the table slowed down and you just want to focus on winning fast, what should I search for with Entomb or Demonic Tutor?

what's your thoughts on Chains of Mephistopheles? i play one in nekusar and i feel like it would fit very well in my meren deck as well, is it a monetary thing?

also on the subject of monetary, meren isnt one of my main decks, so i can't afford to get a living plane for it anytime soon, what's your thoughts on running Kormus Bell as a budget alternative? it does the same thing when you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out, and im just wondering if its worth running as a budget LP

@TheMaelstrom:

Re: Tutor Targets: Obviously it depends on the game, but I would say by far the most common searches are for two cards: Contamination and Living Plane. Contamination on its own locks out many decks, but devastates practically all cEDH lists if you manage to land it together with a Null Rod on the field. Because Null Rod is one of the very first cards you'll want to find in many games, there is a reasonable chance you have already tutored and played it. If you have, a subsequent Contamination usually just ends the game as your opponents have no way to play anything and would slowly die via combat damage. (Two big exceptions are mono-black opponents and mana dorks - however mono- is basically non-existent in CEDH, and mana dorks are usually already dead to wipes or Merciless Executioner effects). Living Plane is the other main tutor target, as it is 1/2 of the "winning" combo and the other 1/2 (Minister of Pain) is "findable" by a much greater number of tutors (i.e. Survival of the Fittest). So, the find-anything tutors are usually used to find the enchantment half of the combo.

@goblinguiderevealpls:

Chains of Mephistopheles is a lot like Carpet of Flowers - depending on your opponents' decks it is either outrageously powerful or completely useless. For me the reasoning on both cards is pretty simple - Carpet of Flowers is almost always "on" (very rarely is NO ONE at the table playing blue), while Chains of Mephistopheles is usually rather useless. It purely comes down to the fact that the particular decks in my meta just aren't shut down by it, so it's not worth including. It is always something to keep on the radar, however; stax is an extremely meta-dependent archetype and for many it will be a fantastic inclusion.

Re: Budget - Unless you are playing ~75% EDH or below, I wouldn't recommend the Kormus Bell route; it is just too difficult to assemble all three cards, and also quite vulnerable to disruption. The main issue is that non-creature cards are FAR more difficult to tutor for. Finding one non-creature card (for the existing two-card combo) is doable but even that can pose issues at times; having to find TWO non-creature cards is a very big ask and I just don't see it being very viable against competitive opponents. The combo would usually be slowly assembled and (likely) telegraphed, but there is an even bigger problem with it. Assuming Kormus Bell and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth are in play, and you cast a Minister of Pain, any of your opponents can instant-speed respond by killing Urborg with Strip Mine or Wasteland, so that when Minister resolves, you will end up just killing a bunch of your own swamps (maybe some of theirs, but most of their lands will survive and many of yours will not).

On a budget I would HIGHLY recommend going the Hulk Combo route as a wincon, and by far one of the best decklists available for this is roguelikedev's Honorbru Meren (see below). The wincon package is much cheaper (financially) and is at least as potent/competitive as my approach (if not moreso!!!)

Honorbru Meren (Finite Hulk)

Commander / EDH roguelikedev

SCORE: 4 | 8 COMMENTS | 1080 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

@goblinguiderevealpls:

Apologies, got a bit ahead of myself and submitted that comment early. A few corrections:

• You can choose not to Exploit with Minister of Pain, but your opponents can still Strip Mine or Wasteland AFTER you make that choice and while the -1/-1 ability is on the stack.
• Minister of Pain will NOT kill your own lands (apologies, I also play a more casual mass-destruction deck and got mixed up for a minute). However your opponents can still instant-speed remove Urborg and prevent Minister from actually wiping their landbase (though you might still get a swamp here or there)

I had a question about the choice of Dampening Matrix, doesnt that stop a couple of good cards in this deck though

@KittyFaye

Yes it does! However consider that it only stops a small handful of our own abilities... and most importantly, the abilities it stops are all toolbox abilities and none of them are crucial to our win condition. On the other hand, it completely stops a huge number of opponent combos and win conditions (i.e. Thrasios, Triton Hero, Aetherflux Reservoir). A little bit of anti-synergy is perfectly acceptable to stop an opponent from winning the game.

So what do you think of Plague Mare as a second Minister of Pain? Worth running both?

Bearmagus:

If you need a second Minister of Pain, it is definitely something to consider. In general I wouldn't think you would need more than one outside of special circumstances, such as lots of tokens in your meta, or your playgroup packing lots of grave hate (where need to ensure a backup win condition in case Minister of Pain gets exiled).

If you only pick one, I still think Minister of Pain is the better choice, because:

1. Minister of Pain automatically loops with itself (don't need a sac outlet, just need Meren)
2. Minister can be used as a free sac outlet for another key creature (i.e. Mindslicer or Reclamation Sage)
3. Single- is preferable to double-.

On the other hand, if combat is very relevant for you, or you have more sacrifice engines you need to feed, then Plague Mare might be a better meta call (though in general, imo the advantages of Minister outweigh those of Plague Mare)