so trying an idea with a sac/counter deck that brings everything back into play, can any one help or recommend changes,there is a few cards im a bit iffy about but that's why there's over 60.
i think it needs more creature gen but im not sure let me know what you think these are the cards ive picked;
Meren of Clan Nel Toth {as commander}
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Vhati il-Dal
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
Ashling, the Extinguisher
maybe some cards with explore to quickly get cards into your graveyard then get them back out again using Meren of Clan Nel Toth (oh hes the commander as well btw)
So right off the bat, I formatted your list into something more readable that also links to cards and removed the duplicates. That's in the spoiler at the end of the post and you can quote my post to see how I did the formatting. Having that in your opening post is going to get you better responses than what you have now.
Second, let's head off the inevitable notice: Braids, Cabal Minion is banned in this format, silver border cards (i.e. Everythingamajig) aren't legal, and Bioshift has a UG color identity and is therefore not legal in a Meren list. All of those rules can potentially be adjusted after discussion with your group, but you'll want to start with something entirely legal, especially if you don't know the people you'll be playing with.
Now that that's out of the way, you're actually off to a decent start here. I'm seeing three main themes: +1/+1 counters, -1/-1 counters, and sacrifice. Those are all very workable themes in EDH decks, so you're not going to be fighting the format to make things work. That said, the place you really want to start (especially as someone new to the format) is with your support cards, particularly removal, ramp, and card draw. Those are what I'm going to focus on: deckbuilding fundamentals. If you have a decent framework, you can get away with a lot of jank in the rest of the deck. Aside from what I have here, you can also take a look at EDHREC.com. It's particularly good for newer players to the format who don't have the broad card knowledge that you get after years of playing an eternal format. Last point before getting into things, I'll try and keep budget in mind a little for suggestions even though you didn't mention it, but some of this stuff is going to cost more. You should have plenty of options to keep cost down if that's a concern. I'll also warn that this is going to get to be a wall of text in a hurry.
The fact that you've included spot removal and a couple pieces of mass removal means you're off to a good start, and several of your choices are solid EDH cards. Typically, for spot removal you're looking for instant speed and flexibility. In a multiplayer game, you want to give the table every opportunity to answer threats so you don't have to spend a card on it. If someone is swinging at a different player, that's still progressing your game plan and you wouldn't want to stop it. Sorcery speed doesn't give you that option. Similarly, if someone is comboing off on their turn you want to be able to interact when it happens. The best spot removal spell you have now is Assassin's Trophy, which is excellent. Murder is also a solid choice. The other ones you're running are more meta dependent. Walk the Plank is very mana efficient, but sorcery speed is a big knock against it. Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push are mixed. The cost and instant speed are great, but you're much more likely to see higher cost threats in this format than you are in other formats. They're certainly not bad cards, but you probably want to supplement with cards that hit higher CMCs. You're also much more likely to need to answer artifacts and enchantments in this format.
Beast Within is a great card for this - the 3/3 token is negligible, especially because there's no guarantee it will be used against you, and it removes any problem permanent at instant speed. Putrefy is less flexible but still excellent. Hero's Downfall is a strict upgrade to Murder, though I do get the appeal of Murder and walkers are not particularly common in most metas. For just creature removal, Go for the Throat, Victim of Night, and Tragic Slip all have some downsides and many upsides. For noncreatures, Nature's Claim is probably the best. One CMC artifact/enchantment removal with almost no downside is excellent. Return to Nature is a new card that's going to be a regular feature for a while - Naturalize, which is also not bad on its own, plus a GY hate option (coming back to this shortly). There's also Krosan Grip and the upcoming Force of Vigor, which both have a lot of upsides. The other thing you can consider in Meren is effects tied to creatures. Ravenous Chupacabra is solid, unconditional creature removal. Bone Shredder is less open, but the fact that it puts itself in the yard where Meren can reuse it is actually upside here. Caustic Caterpillar and Viridian Zealot do something similar for artifacts and enchantments, while Reclamation Sage is probably the best for a simple ETB.
I mentioned GY hate briefly earlier. That's another thing you want in your list most of the time. You don't need to overload on it, especially if you're running tutors that can find it, but having 1-3 pieces will save you a lot of grief. Bojuka Bog is an easy inclusion in black. It doesn't take anything but some tempo and can proactively clear out yards (reactively if you end up with Crop Rotation). You want some instant speed hate as well. Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze are my favorites in these colors, followed by Tormod's Crypt and Withered Wretch. Shred Memory is also good as a piece that can catch people unaware or tutor if you don't need the hate.
The final spot removal area worth highlighting is land destruction. You're not going to make many friends trying to take people off of lands entirely and that's really the only way you're going to be able to play more of a land destroying tempo game, so I wouldn't do that. You do want the ability to answer problematic lands, because there are a lot of them. Some of the spot removal mentioned above can do it, but the other place you want that is in your manabase. Strip Mine and Wasteland are the gold standard but are expensive. I'd personally rank Tectonic Edge after those, but there's an argument for Ghost Quarter, Dust Bowl, and Field of Ruin as well. Opportunity cost to include those is low and upside is high, so you usually want one or two of them.
The next category to think about is mass removal. For the most part, this is referring to creature sweepers. Artifact and enchantment sweepers have a place, but you're more likely to run into board states clogged with creatures than you are any other permanent type in most metas I've played in. Pernicious Deed is a solid one and I'd definitely keep that around. Find // Finality is also good, though you may miss creatures with it from time to time. The gold standards here are Toxic Deluge and Damnation, both of which are pretty pricey. For cheaper stuff, Crux of Fate and Life's Finale are both solid. The new Dead of Winter is also very promising if you can run snow lands. Meren can afford to run a fair number of these, because you have a recursion engine in the command zone. You can also take advantage of your creature sac-ing theme and run some Grave Pact effects. Aside from the eponymous Grave Pact, there's also Dictate of Erebos and Butcher of Malakir. Savra, Queen of the Golgari is a similar one that you already have. If you do want to run some sweepers for noncreature permanents, Bane of Progress is probably the best one, followed by maybe Wave of Vitriol (though it's a decent drop between those). Meren can usually lean on reusing single target effects for this and it's more likely that you're going to need to hit single things anyways.
The next two fundamental areas can kind of be lumped together under the broader heading of velocity. You're going to have better games and more fun when you can reliably do things, and for that to happen you need mana and cards. For mana, that means mana ramp. Meren rewards you for going to creatures, particularly the ones that sac themselves like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Burnished Hart, and Dawntreader Elk. There are also ETB effects like Farhaven Elf and Wood Elves (which can get dual lands with forest typing). Special mention goes to Fertilid, which plays with the +1/+1 counter theme and eventually kills itself for reuse. Beyond those, you're looking at spells and mana rocks. Many metas are less likely to hit your lands and you're in green, so cards like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore, Into the North (if you end up with snow lands), Kodama's Reach, and Cultivate play well. You're looking for relatively inexpensive cards that accelerate your early game mana development. Cards like Boundless Realms are more accurately finishers, where you can overwhelm your opponents with a big resource imbalance late. You also have lots of mana rock options. Some of those, like format staple Sol Ring, are just very efficient. Many of them also come in untapped and give you a decent return on cost. Golgari Signet, the new Talisman of Resilience, Fellwar Stone, Worn Powerstone, Coalition Relic, and Thran Dynamo are all excellent mana rocks.
Card draw you can take in a couple paths. Black will give you straight up draw at the cost of life, while green gives you card draw based on your creatures. Black draw is things like Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Ambition's Cost, and Ancient Craving. Harmonize is green but similar. For creature based single shot draw, you're looking at cards that reward swarms like Shamanic Revelation or Regal Force, or at cards that reward big creatures like Rishkar's Expertise or Garruk, Primal Hunter. There are also engines like Skullclamp (arguably the best draw in the game when you're playing/sac-ing small creatures), Necropotence, Guardian Project, Beast Whisperer, Greater Good, Grim Haruspex, and Phyrexian Arena. For those, consider how quickly you want cards and how often they'll be better than the single shot burst draw effects. You usually want a mix of those two categories to keep cards flowing throughout the game.
At this point, I've written a pretty substantial essay on deckbuilding fundamentals and really don't want to write any more. Hopefully this actually gets read, because I'd like to think I have a pretty good handle on the format. If you start with a good mix of these things, it should give you a solid launching point into the format and you can see which of your themed cards you like more than others. At the end of the day, you're really trying to play something you like and something that fits well with your group. As long as you're doing that and having fun with it, you're succeeding in the format.
Thank you so much man, you are a legend. What an informative detailed response, people like you make me love this community. I will heed your words and work up another deck list! (and post it for more evaluation soon)
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i think it needs more creature gen but im not sure let me know what you think these are the cards ive picked;
Meren of Clan Nel Toth {as commander}
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Vhati il-Dal
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
Ashling, the Extinguisher
Bontu the Glorified
Braids, Cabal Minion
Crovax the Cursed
Drana, Liberator of Malakir
God-Eternal Bontu
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Josu Vess, Lich Knight
Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Drooling Groodion
Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
Golgari Guildmage
Korozda Guildmage
Marrow Chomper
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
Pernicious Deed
Shambling Shell
Vraska, Golgari Queen
Abrupt Decay
Corpsejack Menace
Find // Finality (Finality)
Golgari Guildmage
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Lotleth Troll
Obelisk Spider
Rendclaw Trow
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Spiritmonger
Vraska, Regal Gorgon
Winding Constrictor
Animation Module
Armory of Iroas
Blade of the Bloodchief
Cave of Temptation
Crystalline Crawler
Dragon Blood
Everythingamajig
Flowstone Sculpture
Forge of Heroes
Sword of Truth and Justice
Walking Ballista
Noxious Gearhulk
murder
walk the plank
Vraska's Stoneglare
Liliana, Death Wielder
Arbor Armament
Bone Splinters
Fatal Push
Abrupt Decay
Assassin's Trophy
Golgari Charm
Battlegrowth
Bioshift
Burst of Strength
Elephant Grass
Enter the Unknown
Forced Adaptation
Hardened Scales
Narnam Renegade
Protean Hydra
Stony Strength
Avenger of Zendikar
Plaguemaw Beast
Verdurous Gearhulk
Second, let's head off the inevitable notice: Braids, Cabal Minion is banned in this format, silver border cards (i.e. Everythingamajig) aren't legal, and Bioshift has a UG color identity and is therefore not legal in a Meren list. All of those rules can potentially be adjusted after discussion with your group, but you'll want to start with something entirely legal, especially if you don't know the people you'll be playing with.
Now that that's out of the way, you're actually off to a decent start here. I'm seeing three main themes: +1/+1 counters, -1/-1 counters, and sacrifice. Those are all very workable themes in EDH decks, so you're not going to be fighting the format to make things work. That said, the place you really want to start (especially as someone new to the format) is with your support cards, particularly removal, ramp, and card draw. Those are what I'm going to focus on: deckbuilding fundamentals. If you have a decent framework, you can get away with a lot of jank in the rest of the deck. Aside from what I have here, you can also take a look at EDHREC.com. It's particularly good for newer players to the format who don't have the broad card knowledge that you get after years of playing an eternal format. Last point before getting into things, I'll try and keep budget in mind a little for suggestions even though you didn't mention it, but some of this stuff is going to cost more. You should have plenty of options to keep cost down if that's a concern. I'll also warn that this is going to get to be a wall of text in a hurry.
The fact that you've included spot removal and a couple pieces of mass removal means you're off to a good start, and several of your choices are solid EDH cards. Typically, for spot removal you're looking for instant speed and flexibility. In a multiplayer game, you want to give the table every opportunity to answer threats so you don't have to spend a card on it. If someone is swinging at a different player, that's still progressing your game plan and you wouldn't want to stop it. Sorcery speed doesn't give you that option. Similarly, if someone is comboing off on their turn you want to be able to interact when it happens. The best spot removal spell you have now is Assassin's Trophy, which is excellent. Murder is also a solid choice. The other ones you're running are more meta dependent. Walk the Plank is very mana efficient, but sorcery speed is a big knock against it. Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push are mixed. The cost and instant speed are great, but you're much more likely to see higher cost threats in this format than you are in other formats. They're certainly not bad cards, but you probably want to supplement with cards that hit higher CMCs. You're also much more likely to need to answer artifacts and enchantments in this format.
Beast Within is a great card for this - the 3/3 token is negligible, especially because there's no guarantee it will be used against you, and it removes any problem permanent at instant speed. Putrefy is less flexible but still excellent. Hero's Downfall is a strict upgrade to Murder, though I do get the appeal of Murder and walkers are not particularly common in most metas. For just creature removal, Go for the Throat, Victim of Night, and Tragic Slip all have some downsides and many upsides. For noncreatures, Nature's Claim is probably the best. One CMC artifact/enchantment removal with almost no downside is excellent. Return to Nature is a new card that's going to be a regular feature for a while - Naturalize, which is also not bad on its own, plus a GY hate option (coming back to this shortly). There's also Krosan Grip and the upcoming Force of Vigor, which both have a lot of upsides. The other thing you can consider in Meren is effects tied to creatures. Ravenous Chupacabra is solid, unconditional creature removal. Bone Shredder is less open, but the fact that it puts itself in the yard where Meren can reuse it is actually upside here. Caustic Caterpillar and Viridian Zealot do something similar for artifacts and enchantments, while Reclamation Sage is probably the best for a simple ETB.
I mentioned GY hate briefly earlier. That's another thing you want in your list most of the time. You don't need to overload on it, especially if you're running tutors that can find it, but having 1-3 pieces will save you a lot of grief. Bojuka Bog is an easy inclusion in black. It doesn't take anything but some tempo and can proactively clear out yards (reactively if you end up with Crop Rotation). You want some instant speed hate as well. Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze are my favorites in these colors, followed by Tormod's Crypt and Withered Wretch. Shred Memory is also good as a piece that can catch people unaware or tutor if you don't need the hate.
The final spot removal area worth highlighting is land destruction. You're not going to make many friends trying to take people off of lands entirely and that's really the only way you're going to be able to play more of a land destroying tempo game, so I wouldn't do that. You do want the ability to answer problematic lands, because there are a lot of them. Some of the spot removal mentioned above can do it, but the other place you want that is in your manabase. Strip Mine and Wasteland are the gold standard but are expensive. I'd personally rank Tectonic Edge after those, but there's an argument for Ghost Quarter, Dust Bowl, and Field of Ruin as well. Opportunity cost to include those is low and upside is high, so you usually want one or two of them.
The next category to think about is mass removal. For the most part, this is referring to creature sweepers. Artifact and enchantment sweepers have a place, but you're more likely to run into board states clogged with creatures than you are any other permanent type in most metas I've played in. Pernicious Deed is a solid one and I'd definitely keep that around. Find // Finality is also good, though you may miss creatures with it from time to time. The gold standards here are Toxic Deluge and Damnation, both of which are pretty pricey. For cheaper stuff, Crux of Fate and Life's Finale are both solid. The new Dead of Winter is also very promising if you can run snow lands. Meren can afford to run a fair number of these, because you have a recursion engine in the command zone. You can also take advantage of your creature sac-ing theme and run some Grave Pact effects. Aside from the eponymous Grave Pact, there's also Dictate of Erebos and Butcher of Malakir. Savra, Queen of the Golgari is a similar one that you already have. If you do want to run some sweepers for noncreature permanents, Bane of Progress is probably the best one, followed by maybe Wave of Vitriol (though it's a decent drop between those). Meren can usually lean on reusing single target effects for this and it's more likely that you're going to need to hit single things anyways.
The next two fundamental areas can kind of be lumped together under the broader heading of velocity. You're going to have better games and more fun when you can reliably do things, and for that to happen you need mana and cards. For mana, that means mana ramp. Meren rewards you for going to creatures, particularly the ones that sac themselves like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Burnished Hart, and Dawntreader Elk. There are also ETB effects like Farhaven Elf and Wood Elves (which can get dual lands with forest typing). Special mention goes to Fertilid, which plays with the +1/+1 counter theme and eventually kills itself for reuse. Beyond those, you're looking at spells and mana rocks. Many metas are less likely to hit your lands and you're in green, so cards like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore, Into the North (if you end up with snow lands), Kodama's Reach, and Cultivate play well. You're looking for relatively inexpensive cards that accelerate your early game mana development. Cards like Boundless Realms are more accurately finishers, where you can overwhelm your opponents with a big resource imbalance late. You also have lots of mana rock options. Some of those, like format staple Sol Ring, are just very efficient. Many of them also come in untapped and give you a decent return on cost. Golgari Signet, the new Talisman of Resilience, Fellwar Stone, Worn Powerstone, Coalition Relic, and Thran Dynamo are all excellent mana rocks.
Card draw you can take in a couple paths. Black will give you straight up draw at the cost of life, while green gives you card draw based on your creatures. Black draw is things like Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Ambition's Cost, and Ancient Craving. Harmonize is green but similar. For creature based single shot draw, you're looking at cards that reward swarms like Shamanic Revelation or Regal Force, or at cards that reward big creatures like Rishkar's Expertise or Garruk, Primal Hunter. There are also engines like Skullclamp (arguably the best draw in the game when you're playing/sac-ing small creatures), Necropotence, Guardian Project, Beast Whisperer, Greater Good, Grim Haruspex, and Phyrexian Arena. For those, consider how quickly you want cards and how often they'll be better than the single shot burst draw effects. You usually want a mix of those two categories to keep cards flowing throughout the game.
At this point, I've written a pretty substantial essay on deckbuilding fundamentals and really don't want to write any more. Hopefully this actually gets read, because I'd like to think I have a pretty good handle on the format. If you start with a good mix of these things, it should give you a solid launching point into the format and you can see which of your themed cards you like more than others. At the end of the day, you're really trying to play something you like and something that fits well with your group. As long as you're doing that and having fun with it, you're succeeding in the format.
1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
\\Creature
1x Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1x Ashling, the Extinguisher
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bontu the Glorified
1x Braids, Cabal Minion
1x Corpsejack Menace
1x Crovax the Cursed
1x Crystalline Crawler
1x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1x Drooling Groodion
1x Flowstone Sculpture
1x God-Eternal Bontu
1x Golgari Guildmage
1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
1x Josu Vess, Lich Knight
1x Korozda Guildmage
1x Lotleth Troll
1x Marrow Chomper
1x Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
1x Narnam Renegade
1x Noxious Gearhulk
1x Obelisk Spider
1x Plaguemaw Beast
1x Protean Hydra
1x Rendclaw Trow
1x Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
1x Savra, Queen of the Golgari
1x Shambling Shell
1x Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
1x Spiritmonger
1x Verdurous Gearhulk
1x Vhati il-Dal
1x Walking Ballista
1x Winding Constrictor
1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Arbor Armament
1x Assassin's Trophy
1x Battlegrowth
1x Bioshift
1x Burst of Strength
1x Fatal Push
1x Golgari Charm
1x Murder
1x Stony Strength
\\Enchantment
1x Elephant Grass
1x Forced Adaptation
1x Hardened Scales
1x Pernicious Deed
\\Land
1x Cave of Temptation
1x Forge of Heroes
\\Artifact
1x Animation Module
1x Armory of Iroas
1x Blade of the Bloodchief
1x Dragon Blood
1x Everythingamajig
1x Sword of Truth and Justice
1x Bone Splinters
1x Enter the Unknown
1x Find // Finality
1x Vraska's Stoneglare
1x Walk the Plank
\\Planeswalker
1x Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
1x Liliana, Death Wielder
1x Vraska, Golgari Queen
1x Vraska, Regal Gorgon