This deck has been moved to Moxfield. It will no longer be updated here.

Introduction

There is life even in death, that is the philosphy of Clan Nel Toth. The necromancers of Jund are skilled in the art of recycling organic matter, and none more so than Meren of Clan Nel Toth.

This is a commander who rewards you for aggressively committing to the board by letting you Reanimate or Regrowth a creature at the end of each of your turns. Her ability to do this gets more effective as more and more of your creatures die in front of her. This deck has plenty of self-sacrifice going on to facilitate this gameplan but also plenty of symmetric effects to ensure that our opponents aren't missing out on the sacrifice shenanigans.

In this Primer, I've created the following categories and divided up the information accordingly:

  • TL;DR Primer - a very condensed general gameplan with only the necessary details.

  • Packages - cards listed and grouped by function so you can get a better idea of how many sources we have of ramp, removal, etc.

  • Individual Card Choices - each of the 100 cards individually analyzed from top to bottom, outlining exactly why it made the cut, what it does for the deck and what combos or interactions it has with the others.

  • Combos - the lines of play you can take to win the game on the spot, outlined step-by-step so you don't miss any triggers or interactions.

  • No-Combo Kit - an option provided to players who shy away from infinite combos and want to be able to play this deck with a more casual playgroup. This section points out the combo cards and provides lower-power replacements.

  • Budget Options - if you like the idea of the deck but can't afford some of the more expensive cards, this section will point them out and provide suitable budget replacements.

TL;DR Primer

  • Do not cast Meren of Clan Nel Toth unless there is something worth retrieving in your graveyard or unless you have a plan to start gaining experience counters (i.e. a repeatable and retrievable sac outlet like Viscera Seer). She is a removal magnet and should not be put out there unless she herself is providing value or unless you're gaining experience counters.

  • If you have access to any tutors, go for Protean Hulk if you have a way to get it on the board and kill it. Otherwise, prioritize cards that will help you set up a sac engine or cards that will help you control the board such as Plaguecrafter, Braids, Arisen Nightmare or Haywire Mite.

  • The endgame is to combo off with Protean Hulk by killing it and fetching the necessary creatures needed to win on the spot. Everything until then revolves around grinding value with Meren and keeping opponents' boards under control.

Packages

It's worth noting that we're a little light on card draw because we're running several tutors to make up for it.

Individual Card Choices

A lot of the cards in this deck are pretty self-explanatory. Reading the card explains the card. However, some do have some niche applications and synergies that aren't immediately apparent. Take a glance through this section if any card in the list looks peculiar to you, otherwise feel free to collapse this panel and skip it if you feel confident that you understand the applications of each card.

I also prefer to discuss my cards in order of ascending CMC to better visualize my curve. If you're viewing this deck, I encourage you to click the "Sort" dropdown and select "Mana Value".

Meren of Clan Nel Toth may seem pretty straightforward on the surface, but there are a lot of nuances and small combos you'll need to understand to fully unleash her potential.

First and foremost, notice that Meren's effect is mandatory. This means that at the end of the turn, if there is a valid creature card target in our graveyard and Meren is on the field, we MUST target it with Meren's effect. If we have enough experience counters, it gets reanimated. If we do not, it returns to our hand, we don't have a choice here.

The next thing to keep in mind is that Experience Counters stick around once you get them, no matter what happens to Meren. However, this doesn't mean that you should just cast Meren willy-nilly, you should only cast her when you have a plan to start gaining experience counters.

In the early game, an easy way to do this is to use a repeatable sac outlet like Carrion Feeder. On your turn, while Meren is out, even if you have no reason to use the Feeder's effect, just sac it to itself anyway. This will trigger Meren and give us an Experience Counter. Then at the end of the turn, we can just revive the Carrion Feeder with Meren's effect anyway.

If there is a board wipe on the stack or some other form of removal, consider sac'ing your creatures to the Feeder (or any instant-speed sac outlet) to get as many Experience Counters as you can.

At a most basic level, the most important skill to develop for piloting this deck is efficiency in generating Experience Counters. Sac'ing Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer for no reason knowing you can just bring them back at the end of your turn, sac'ing Spore Frog even if nobody is attacking, etc.

Once we have 7 Experience Counters, we don't need any more (no creature in our deck has a CMC more than 7). After that, we don't have to worry about Experience Counters.

After that is understood and mastered, you have to see the lines of play that will allow you to control the board. For example, if you have a Ravenous Chupacabra and Meren on the field but need to deal with a problematic enemy creature, you should look to use a sac outlet to get the Chupacabra into your graveyard so that you can bring it back with Meren to take advantage of its ETB effect. That's just one example of many. There are a lot of creatures in the deck that have ETB effects (refer to the Packages section above) and replace the Ravenous Chupacabra in the example with any appropriate creature to have an answer for any given situation.

Birds of Paradise, Elves of Deep Shadow, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves and Llanowar Elves are all 1-cost mana dorks that accelerate our early game by allowing us to turbo out Meren and our other spells ahead of curve. They also serve as efficient sac fodder because we only need 1 Exp counter for Meren of Clan Nel Toth to revive them.

Spore Frog can be sacrificed at instant speed to fog any combat damage that would be dealt to us and because it's so cheap to cast, it's very easy to recur with Meren's effect, making it very difficult for opponents to deal combat damage to us.

Haywire Mite is efficient removal for Artifacts and Enchantments and does everything we want in this deck. It sends itself to graveyard which gives us an Exp counter with Meren and because it's just 1 CMC it's pretty much always available for Meren to revive so we can keep Artifact and Enchantment decks in check, all while gaining more experience counters.

Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer are in here for the same reasons. They cost 1 mana to cast, they can sacrifice creatures (including themselves) at instant speed and they enable our combos. These are also some of the most efficient ways to generate experience counters because if we have Meren of Clan Nel Toth out, we can just sac them to themselves, get an exp counter and then just bring them back at the end of turn.

Disciple of the Vault is literally just a combo piece and part of a Protean Hulk package that can win the game on the spot.

Lesser Masticore is another piece of that same combo. The Persist makes it good sac fodder because it just brings itself back ready to be sac'd again.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast prevents us from getting Poison counters which is useful against the rogue Infect cards we might encounter but it's mainly in here to enable the combo of Disciple of the Vault + Lesser Masticore + a repeatable sac outlet. It prevents -1/-1 counters from being placed on our creatures which means that Lesser Masticore reviving itself with Persist will be at normal power/toughness and can be repeatedly sacrificed.

Fauna Shaman helps our strategy by dumping creatures into our graveyard in exchange for any creature in our deck. With Meren of Clan Nel Toth on the board, we can simply retrieve the creature we discarded or just reanimate it if we have enough experience counters.

Dauthi Voidwalker is fantastic in this deck for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it forces our opponents to exile any cards that would otherwise end up in their graveyards with a Void Counter on them. So with just that effect alone, it disrupts several decks reliant on their graveyard. Then, the Voidwalker can sac itself and let us cast one of those cards for free. That alone is pretty good but then realize that we can recur this repeatedly with Meren so we can keep disrupting our opponents' graveyard strategies and repeatedly steal their stuff.

Fiend Artisan is sort of like a Green Sun's Zenith except it requires a sacrifice and can grab any creature with CMC equal to the amount we spent on X. So a death trigger for Meren and any creature we want from our deck.

Sakura-Tribe Elder is fantastic value in this deck because it kills itself to ramp which gives us a Meren experience counter and due to its 2 CMC, it can very easily be revived with Meren to do it all over again.

Farhaven Elf lets us grab any basic land out of our deck when it ETBs. Obviously great to reanimate if there's nothing better to do so we can ramp even more. We're playing this instead of Wood Elves because Wood Elves can only fetch Forests, whereas Farhaven Elf can get either Forests or Swamps, and in this deck we have some pretty heavily-colored casting costs so having that option of either a Swamp or Forest is important in this particular build.

Eternal Witness provides some nice utility of being able to Regrowth any card from our graveyard when it ETBs. Meren of Clan Nel Toth can only reanimate and retrieve creatures, so having the option of recycling an instant, sorcery, enchantment or artifact is just nice to have.

Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, Demon's Disciple and Plaguecrafter all serve the same function. When they ETB they force everyone to sacrifice a creature. For us, we can just sac it to itself, thus triggering Meren's effect to give us an experience counter and forcing all opponents to get rid of one of their creatures. Finally, if we have 3 EXP counters we can just bring one of these back at the end of the turn and do it again. These help police the board and keep our opponents from advancing their board state.

Gravelighter is sort of in the same club, however it works a little differently depending on whether or not a creature died. If one did, Gravelighter draws us a card when it ETBs. If one didn't, it forces everyone to sac a creature just like Fleshbag Marauder. Either way, it's a win-win for us.

Grim Haruspex rewards us for all the sacrificing we're doing by drawing us cards. Not a whole lot else to be said here, it's just great value in an aristrocrats-style deck.

Morbid Opportunist is in here for the same reason as Grim Haruspex, reliable card draw in a deck focused on self-sacrifice (although not quite as good due to only triggering once per turn).

Braids, Arisen Nightmare is incredible in this deck. On our end step, we have the option to sacrifice one of our permanents and then all opponents have the choice to sacrifice one of the same type. If they don't we draw a card. Either way, it's a win-win for us. We get a death trigger for Meren (if we picked a creature), and we get rid of our opponents' stuff OR we get to draw cards. And recall that Braids can sac herself, so if we have Meren with at least 2 Exp counters, we can sac Braids, get another Exp counter and just revive her with Meren's effect.

Woe Strider mainly in here because we want to be playing as many instant-speed sac outlets available to us. The nice thing is that it brings its own Goat token with it to get us started with the death triggers.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan is in here for the same reason, except it's a little more useful because it can make itself indestructible at instant speed while giving us a death trigger.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is another instant-speed sac outlet except this one also requires us to pay 1 life. The trade-off is that we get to cripple a creature and draw a card when all is said and done.

Vile Entomber is basically a repeatable Entomb in this deck because we can dump something with the ETB trigger, then sacrifice Vile Entomber to one of several sac outlets and just reanimate it with Meren later to do it all over again.

Ravenous Chupacabra straight up destroys an enemy creature when it ETBs. Just a useful way to control the board and answer threats and recurrable with Meren if we have at least 4 Exp counters.

Phyrexian Delver is mainly in here because it enables a secondary combo with Protean Hulk, but we can also use it as a reanimation effect if we need to.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier does everything we want in this deck. It forces one of our creatures to die which will trigger Meren's effect, and then we get to Demonic Tutor for any card we want.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is mainly in here for combo purposes but it provides a blanket buff to most of our creatures and gives them Undying which means they'll be coming back whenever they die or we sacrifice them for our own effects.

Wurmcoil Engine helps keep us healthy with its Lifelink but the fact that we can just kill with a sac outlet to get 2 tokens and then just reanimate it with Meren and repeat just makes it that much better.

Protean Hulk is our main combo enabler. Not much to say here, get it on the board and find a way to kill it, then we get to combo off. See the Combos section for more details.

Butcher of Malakir is basically Grave Pact on a body. We're doing a lot of self-sacrificing so our creatures are going to be dying left and right. The more of these edict effects we have on the field, the more we benefit from our creatures dying. And since Butcher of Malakir is a creature, it can be reanimated or retrieved with Meren, making it very oppressive in this deck.

Sol Ring is just a cheap and efficient mana rock.

Weatherlight Compleated is fantastic in this deck because it lets us scry each time one of our creatures dies, so it's useful for filtering through our deck and digging for combo pieces. Once enough creatures have died in front of it, it becomes a creature itself and any further death triggers will straight up draw us cards.

Ashnod's Altar is an instant-speed sac outlet that lets us trade one of our creatures for . The mana is nice but the ability to sacrifice our creatures at instant speed is what makes this card so important to our strategy.

Phyrexian Altar is basically another copy of Ashnod's Altar for sac purposes except it gives us 1 colored mana instead.

Altar of Dementia is the last of our instant-speed sac artifacts, but this one mills a player for a number of cards equal to the power of the creature we sacrificed. We can use this to mill ourselves and give us juicy targets for Meren's reanimation effect.

Birthing Pod is a sac outlet that lets us replace the creature we sac with another one with a CMC 1 higher than the one we sacrificed. This is a great way to climb through our CMC ladder, taking advantage of several impactful ETB effects and filling our graveyard with reanimation targets on our up way to Protean Hulk.

Animate Dead lets us reanimate a creature with the added stipulation that if the Aura is removed, the creature gets sac'd. Not something we care about too much, as we'll probably get ETB value from that creature anyway.

Evolutionary Leap gives us the option to sacrifice a creature and in exchange we get to "draw" the next creature card available from the top of our deck. That's a very simplified explanation but it's essentially what this effect boils down to: we can sac a creature and get a new card into our hand.

Journey to Eternity   can be attached to a creature we're ready to sac and once we kill that creature, this card transforms into Atzal, Cave of Eternity  , a land that produces any color of mana and gives us the option to reanimate something for . We can't be relying on Meren alone for reanimation as we have to assume she'll get targeted with removal so having a back-up repeatable source of reanimation is crucial to backing up our gameplan.

Grave Pact makes all of our creatures' deaths symmetric. Every time a creature of ours dies, our opponents are forced to sac one as well. This doesn't just mean our sac outlets, but opponents will be disincentivized to block our creatures or send any attacks our way, because if any of our stuff dies, so does theirs.

Guardian Project rewards us for our reanimation game by drawing us a card each time one of our creatures ETBs.

Gift of Doom is a great way to protect Meren. We can cast it face-down for then turn it face-up and attach it to Meren at anytime by simply sacrificing another creature. The cost does what we want in this deck and we can save Meren from a removal spell. Plus, the action of unmorphing (turning Gift of Doom face up does not use the stack so it's actually faster even than instant speed and cannot be responded to with instant speed effects/spells).

Tear Asunder is one of the most versatile and reliable removal spells of all time. It's a strictly better Naturalize at it's absolute worst, because it exiles a target artifact or enchantment, so it can even get rid of Darksteel Forge for example. At best, however, if we have the spare mana we can kick it and exile literally any non-land permanent. If you're not running this in GBx decks, you need to give it a try.

Assassin's Trophy gets rid of any problematic permanent in exchange for giving the controller a free land.

Beast Within is another reliable removal spell that destroys any permanent and gives the controller a beast token instead.

Chord of Calling lets us tutor for any creature we want straight from our deck. This deck's ability to maintain field presence helps us take advantage of the Convoke and lets us find whatever we're looking for to combo off or respond to a threat on the board.

Farseek, Rampant Growth, Nature's Lore and Three Visits all get a land out of our deck and onto the battlefield. Cheap and reliable sources of ramp.

Agadeem's Awakening   is great late-game reanimation spell when we have lots of mana available and plenty of creatures in our graveyard. However, it also gives us the option to just play it as a land if we need the mana so it's never a dead card at any stage of the game.

Buried Alive lets us tutor for any 3 creatures and dump them straight into the graveyard. Great for setting us up with our engine pieces we need to get the Meren train rolling. One of these should always be a 1-mana sac outlet (Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer). The others are up to you but typically we want to get some form of repeatable removal (i.e. Ravenous Chupacabra or Plaguecrafter) and some utility such as Sidisi, Undead Vizier.

Reanimate revives any creature we want at the cost of some life.

Eldritch Evolution is like a one-time Birthing Pod but it can skip a tier in the CMC chain, allowing us to get a creature that costs up to 2 CMC more than the one we sac'd to it. Just some great toolbox utility in a deck packed full of ETB effects to respond to the board.

Natural Order plays into our strategy by allowing us to sac one green creature in exchange for another one straight from our deck to the battlefield. We can very easily find our Protean Hulk and combo off this way, all while getting a death trigger for Meren.

Toxic Deluge is a flexible board wipe, allowing us to pay any amount of life to give all creatures -X/-X. We can use this to save our bigger stuff and get rid of problematic enemy creatures instead.

Blooming Marsh, Command Tower, Darkbore Pathway  , Deathcap Glade, Llanowar Wastes, Necroblossom Snarl, Nurturing Peatland, Overgrown Tomb, Tainted Wood, Twilight Mire, Undergrowth Stadium and Woodland Cemetery all come into play untapped and produce both of our colors.

Haunted Mire comes into play tapped but it's searchable via Verdant Catacombs, Farseek, Nature's Lore and Three Visits.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth turns all of our lands into Swamps so we don't have to worry about producing Black mana, and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth does the same thing except for our Green mana.

High Market and Phyrexian Tower are instant speed sac outlets in land form.

An near-even split of 9 Forests and 8 Swamps round out the land base. Even though our deck is heavier in black at the top end of the curve, we need reliable access to green in the early game for our mana dorks and ramp spells.

Combos

This section will outline and explain the Protean Hulk combos that can win the game on the spot. The basic catalyst for each of these is resolving a Protean Hulk and having it die so that it can fetch the appropriate combo pieces.

Requirements:

  • Protean Hulk on the field and some way to kill it (repeatable or one-time sac outlets both work here)

Steps:

  1. Kill/sacrifice the Hulk, then use its effect to fetch the following 4 cards: Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Lesser Masticore, Disciple of the Vault and Carrion Feeder (or Viscera Seer).

  2. Sac the Lesser Masticore to the Carrion Feeder's ability. Disciple of the Vault deals 1 damage to an opponent because an Artifact left our field.

  3. Lesser Masticore comes back thanks to its Persist ability, but cannot have the -1/-1 Counter placed on it because of Melira, Sylvok Outcast.

  4. You're back to where you started, repeat steps 2 and 3 until all opponents are dead.

Notes:

  • This is the most efficient combo that requires the least set-up.

  • If you happen to have Grim Haruspex or Morbid Opportunist on the field, get rid of them by sacrificing them to a sac outlet first. Grim Haruspex's card draw effect is mandatory and you don't want to deck yourself out while performing this combo.

  • If you happen to have Guardian Project on the field, do not attempt this combo until you get rid of it because its card draw effect is manadatory and you will deck yourself out while performing it. Alternatively, you can go for it if you have the mana available to cast one of the following removal spells: Haywire Mite, Tear Asunder, Assassin's Trophy and Beast Within, all of which are retrievable via Eternal Witness if for whatever reason they're all in the graveyard. Regardless, Guardian Project will draw through your deck until you find a way to remove it and once you do, you can continue the combo to finish off your opponents.

theboys

Me and the boys looking to drain everyone out with degenerate combos

Requirements:

  • Protean Hulk on the field and a way to kill it

  • At least 8 life

Steps:

  1. Kill the Hulk and use its effect to tutor a Phyrexian Delver and a Carrion Feeder (or Viscera Seer).

  2. Reanimate Protean Hulk using the Delver's ETB trigger. Lose 7 life.

  3. Sac the Hulk to Carrion Feeder or any repeatable sac outlet.

  4. With Hulk's death trigger, fetch a Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and a Walking Ballista.

  5. The Ballista is a 0/0 but gets buffed by Mikaeus so it's actually a 1/1. Sac the Ballista to Carrion Feeder. Ballista has Undying thanks to Mikaeus, so it returns to the battlefield but with a +1/+1 counter on it this time.

  6. Remove the +1/+1 Counter from Ballista and have it deal 1 damage to an opponent. It now has no counters on it.

  7. Sac it again to the Feeder, Ballista returns with Undying and a +1/+1 counter. Remove it to ping an opponent. Repeat until the table is dead.

Notes:

blasting

Requirements:

Steps:

  1. Sacrifice Lesser Masticore to Altar of Dementia to mill an opponent.

  2. Lesser Masticore returns to the field thanks to Persist but cannot have a -1/-1 Counter placed on it due to Melira, Sylvok Outcast.

  3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 an infinite number of times to mill all opponents out.

No-Combo Kit

Not every playgroup will appreciate being combo'd do death by Protean Hulk and his gang of misfits, so if you like the concept of the deck but don't want to run an infinite damage combo, I've provided a list of suitable replacements that you can use to "downgrade" the deck to better fit a more casual playgroup.

Now for replacements, we're going to stick with cards that are as close as possible in mana cost but are still good in a Meren reanimator strategy:

Budget Options

Lands

Sorceries

Artifacts

Enchantments

Creatures

Change Log

11/14/22

  • Been doing extensive testing and I think I've landed on a few changes that will make me happy with this deck for the time being.

  • Sheoldred, Whispering One was removed. I found that she is a removal magnet and will have instant-speed removal pointed at her the second she hits the board, so most games I would almost never get to reanimate anything with her because she would never survive into my next upkeep. For this reason I replaced her with another 7-drop Butcher of Malakir because at least that one does something while it's on the board regardless of what turn/phase it is.

  • I also removed Damnation because there is just so much removal in the deck already that I found I didn't need this. Replaced it with Evolutionary Leap as another sac outlet and sort of card-draw.

  • Next up, Awakening Zone was also removed. 3 mana to cast and does nothing until the turn gets back to us, and only provides . Decided it was too slow and wanted something with more utility so I added Journey to Eternity   back into the deck.

  • Finally, a minor optimization, a single Swamp was replaced with Agadeem's Awakening   because it gives us the option of mass reanimation in the late game but we can always play it as a land if needed so nothing was lost by removing that Swamp.

11/13/22

  • Entomb was removed because it's too cheap and consistent for a deck that isn't meant to be cEDH-level. Yes I want to combo off, but not that quickly. It has been replaced with Dauthi Voidwalker because it's a pretty good card that can sacrifice itself which works well in this deck.

11/3/22

  • Removed Oriq Loremage because it's a bit slow, has to survive a whole rotation around the table before it can start tapping to Entomb stuff. I replaced it with Vile Entomber for now because it can ETB and give us benefits immediately.

  • Replaced Caustic Caterpillar with Haywire Mite because it's better in most cases.

  • Also updated the primer, specifically the No-Combo Kit section.

  • Finally, looking to put in Skyfisher Spider but haven't decided what to remove yet, perhaps Ravenous Chupacabra.

10/25/22

  • Took out Journey to Eternity   because we have enough reanimation already and I wanted to lean more into creatures so I added Gravelighter in its place.

  • Removed Diabolic Intent as well to cut back on the generic tutors; the deck was creeping too far into cEDH territory and I wanted to power it down a bit. It was replaced with Weatherlight Compleated because it's a cool card I have sitting around and wanted a deck to use it in.

10/6/22

10/2/22

  • Added a Budget Options section to the Primer, no changes to the base deck.

10/1/22

  • Took out Pattern of Rebirth. Found that in some situations I had a creature to enchant but no way to kill it and opponents weren't going to because they knew I'd just fetch something more problematic for them. Decided to replace it with Eternal Witness because the utility of retrieving any card upon ETB is nice to have.

9/30/22

9/1/22

8/23/22

  • Removed Creakwood Liege in favor of Gift of Doom. I was testing it in a Shirei list and it's quickly become one of my favorites. Play it face-down for then turn it face-up at instant speed by sac'ing a creature. Protect Meren and send a creature to the yard which is exactly what we want to be doing in this deck.

8/5/22

  • Massive deck overhaul, pretty much rebuilt it from the ground up. Changes were too extensive to list here. Combos are still in the deck, but there is now a bigger focus on aristocrats and self-sacrifice.

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Revision 28 See all

(1 year ago)

+1 Agadeem's Awakening  Flip main
-1 Swamp main
Date added 4 years
Last updated 7 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

42 - 0 Rares

21 - 0 Uncommons

11 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.77
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Experience Token, Goat 0/1 W, Morph 2/2 C, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders Meren Commander, EDH, Fun decks
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