Welcome to Merieke's travel agency, she works diligently for Satan incorporated in an effort to increase the tourism rates of hell. The current sale is allowing for a one time trip (sometimes more if you have the Adarkar Valkyrie or similar coupon), free of charge, to the graveyard, for each and every family of creatures (additional rates may apply).
HUBS: About a third of my critters are pulling off a demon tribal, which I appreciate. Reanimator isn't likely the correct hub but I have a decent amount of creature recycling.Control, not the typical control deck but I can typically remove every commander, killing them off until they cost too much to cast or keeping them to myself with my creature recycle, plus when the deck is playing well the only creatures that I don't control should be those that I chose to leave, thus control.
Working on mushing grave pact style archetype with merieke. The goal is to sacrifice the stolen creature for fun effects and steal another. Rinse and repeat, and remember, there is a lot of fun to be had and merieke is going to have it all.
RETURN MERIEKE'S DEAD CREATURES: The opponent's dead creatures are precious, we must protect them and let them see the light, also known as my side of the battlefield in righteous rebirth (remember, if most people only draw about 33% of their deck in a game (7 initial + 13 turns, with some draws, we will say 13 for simple math of 33 cards (33%), with an average of 30 creatures in a deck, they will get about 10 creatures per player, leaving only 30 or so creatures to be stolen, so we have to get the most bang for our buck):
Adarkar Valkyrie, Demon of Dark Schemes, It That Betrays is being considered, The Scarab God, Fool's Demise, Grave Betrayal, and a host of things to make my creatures indestructible until end of turn, so when merieke untaps, I get to keep the creatures.
GRAVE PACT TYPE THINGS: Archfiend of Depravity, Butcher of Malakir, Indulgent Tormentor, Sheoldred, Whispering One, ye ol' Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact.
PROTECT MY GLASS CANNON: 1/1 commander: Adarkar Valkyrie, i will just return merieke. If you let her go to the graveyard: Sheoldred, Whispering One, Fool's Demise and Treasury Thrull will work. Darksteel Plate, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Crab Umbra, Curator's Ward, Pemmin's Aura Negate or the handful of spells that give my creatures indestructible. Don't touch my merieke.
SPECIAL MENTION LANDS: Arcane Lighthouse and Detection Tower mean I don't have to blow up everyone's lightning graves and swiftfoot boots. Note that detection tower only removes hexproof, not shroud. Minamo, School at Water's Edge for a bit of untap and Vault of the Archangel. I like the last one for lifegain, but its more fun to activate it when I am blocking, kill the attacker w/ deathtouch, lose my own creature and trigger Grave Pact. The mana base itself is intended to make sure I achieve esper colors by no later than turn 3 and player her no later than turn 4.
MANA BASE:* I can't afford all the good dual lands and I would prefer the consistency provided by the dual lands rather than have a host of basic lands and hope I draw esper, even though it can be slower. Additionally, my artifact ramp is based around my own crappy luck which dictates that I won't ever have a starting hand with more than 2 lands and I am paranoid about how long it will be till my third land, so my artifact ramp are all 2 CMC. If you have better luck than me, then by all means adjust your mana base.
WINCONS: commander damage, jk. Swinging w/ an entire board of my opponent's creatures that I managed to keep w/ the indestructible effects, or Grave Betrayal type effects. I intend to sneak a win in via Debt to the Deathless or Xathrid Demon. Rise of the Dark Realms, there will be a lot of dead creatures to reanimate. Pontiff of Blight can be a real threat that has one more than 1 game for merieke.
MAYBEBOARD: Is much less thought out than the rest of this list, the only key bit of info for others to consider is cards like Pentavus. For 2 mana, I can cycle counters off then back onto Pentavus sacrificing a creature along the way and triggering my Grave Pact type things.
MERIEKE'S WEAKNESSES:* non-creature spells that I can't steal, anything that prevents activated abilities like Pithing Needle, ETB effects, enchantment and artifact removal. I can't stop ETB effects, and enchantment and artifact removal will take out what I need to untap merieke, All is not lost as there are the other wincons mentioned above, but it will be crippled.
Other then that, it is a pretty typical merieke deck untapping her repeatedly and having a bunch of fun. Don't forget to use the stack to your advantage, stealing multiple creatures in one go rather than 1 at a time. King of Jank
s video provided a solid base of understanding on how a merieke deck should be belt should you wish to adjust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK28k5pgu1s
