Meren’s Thousand-Eyed Army [Primer]

Commander / EDH Control_Train

SCORE: 165 | 76 COMMENTS | 28677 VIEWS | IN 77 FOLDERS

M19, New Ravnica, and Other Big Changes —Sept. 10, 2018

Nothing interesting from M19, but some pretty major upgrades AND we’re going back to Ravnica.

In:

• Abrupt Decay - this card is just too good a piece of removal to not have
• Barren Moor - cycles
• Blooming Marsh *f-pre* - dual land, sometimes enters untapped
• Carrion Feeder - one mana sacrifice outlet, I think I need more
• Chainer, Dementia Master - reanimate at instant speed from any graveyard; replacing Demon for combo purposes
• Chord of Calling - how I missed this I’m not sure but it’s bonkers
• Dross Harvester - a strict upgrade over Deathgreeter
• Entomb - how did I not play this card for a year and a half
• Grim Tutor - this card is quite good at any stage of the game
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - this card fits extremely well with the rest of the deck
• Necromancy - animate dead with a possible instant speed function
• Noxious Gearhulk *f-pre* - targeted removal with the upside of life gain
• Pitiless Plunderer - this is huge ramp
• Savra, Queen of the Golgari - life gain and board clearing all in one sexy Queen
• Skullmulcher - this is really sweet card draw that's repeatable and on theme
• Smothering Abomination *f-pre* - more card draw never hurt anyone
• Svogthos, the Restless Tomb - it lives again
• Thrashing Brontodon - Caustic Caterpillar the second
• Tranquil Thicket - cycles
• Windgrace's Judgment - instant speed three for one
• Yahenni, Undying Partisan *f-pre* - a sacrifice outlet that gets big and can protect himself Guilds of Ravnica Additions:
  • Assassin's Trophy - this card is stupidly broken
  • Doom Whisperer - pay two life to self-mill for two; seems like a bargain
  • Izoni, Thousand-Eyed - testing tokens and a semi-sacrifice outlet
  • Midnight Reaper - a second version of Grim Haruspex
  • Kraul Foragers - mass lifegain on ETB
  • Plaguecrafter - this is a fleshbag marauder on crack
  • Underrealm Lich - this card is nuts; gets around Nekusar and gets 3 cards deep on every draw AND prevents you from decking yourself
  • Vraska, Golgari Queen - trying her out for card draw and abrupt decay on a stick Out:
    • Arbor Elf - I’m sad to see him go, but he isn’t guaranteed to color fix and he is terrible to top deck late game
    • Birds of Paradise - I’m moving away from mana dorks because they are so terrible late game
    • Brutalizer Exarch - served a specific function that is low probability
    • Butcher of Malakir - It's very useful as a psuedo Damnation, but it's very slow and is terrible immediately after a board wipe and it doesn't function strictly as a board wipe on it's own for seven mana
    • Caustic Caterpillar - Thrashing Brontodon is better
    • Deathgreeter - this was replaced with a strictly better card
    • Demon of Dark Schemes - Chainer is way easier to use
    • Elves of Deep Shadow - see above
    • Faerie Macabre - this was mostly in the deck to fight Gitrog combo in my meta: it has its uses, but generally isn’t that good
    • Fleshbag Marauder - Plaguecrafter is just so much better, and the redundancy on this specific type of effect is not useful
    • Forbidden Orchard - I have grown to hate this land so rather than replace it with another land I’m just cutting it; honestly though I feel safe cutting a land and this one needs to go
    • Golgari Grave-Troll, Golgari Thug, Stinkweed Imp, Life from the Loam - dredge is completely replaced by Underrealm Lich
    • Imperial Seal - its very slow and fits better in my Yuriko deck anyways
    • Ouphe Vandals - it’s just too hard to keep in play 100% of the time, and doesn’t stop everything
    • Pawn of Ulamog - I’m changing the combo up a bit so I don’t need this anymore
    • Putrid Imp - without the dredge cards, he just isn't as useful anymore
    • Ramunap Excavator - it doesn’t do enough honestly; it’s cute, but has to go
    • Repopulate - this card really doesn't serve a purpose; Riftsweeper is better
    • Sadistic Hypnotist - the sorcery speed really kills it for me, and Mindslicer is just better hand disruption
    • Skullclamp - this card is quite good, but it can sometimes be less useful
    • 2xSnow-Covered Forest and 2xSnow-Covered Swamp - cutting basics to make room for the onslaught cycle lands, one utility land and one dual land; even after these cuts I stll have 14 basics so I'm unaffected by blood moon and Steve still has 14 targets
    • Terastodon - this card is a bit slow despite being high impact, but the 3/3 bodies my opponent’s get often end up outweighing the positive
    • World Breaker *f-pre* - the only thing this really does is remove indestructible artifacts and enchantments through Torpor Orb; I've probably already lost if an indestructible Orb hits the field, and it being a cast trigger kills it for me