Death and Staxes FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List
Hi all, the eventual goal of this thread is to achieve Primer status - you may have seen my Niv-Mizzet the Firemind Primer here, and I hope to do something similar in this (albeit much darker) vein.
If you haven't seen Gromgrom's Primer, check it out over here. While his list focuses heavily on the combo, my list is all-in on stax; I seek to completely lock the game down as quickly and consistently as possible, while remaining resilient to removal from opponents. There are still wincons, but I've opted to eliminate combo in the name of really nailing the stax element. Therefore, Gromgrom's and my lists play quite differently, and I hope two Primers may ultimately coexist!
I have been piloting (and keeping quiet) about this list for roughly a year now (see changelog below) and at this point, I am finally pleased with it enough to post here. Looking forward to your feedback - though note, this list will be extremely unpopular at casual tables! I have spared no expense in its construction, as you will undoubtedly see.
You can expect regular updates from me in the coming weeks and months as I expand on this thread and ultimately flesh it out into a Primer-like state. Please let me know what you'd like to see!
Background
The objectives of this build are simple:
Lock the board down as quickly and consistently as humanly possible - using destroy, forced sacrifice, discard, and tax effects.
Maintain relentless engines of card advantage and game control, preventing anyone from breaking the lock and enabling you to win quickly and efficiently (without compromising Goal #1)
In making my card choices, two items mattered above all else:
Keeping the curve low: In competitive games, lists are starting to go off by Turn 3. A stax deck that can't outrace them will not be successful.
Multiplicity of threats, stax elements, and engines: Maximizing the number of stax elements, recursion engines, and disruption tools to ensure the right options are available right from the beginning - and then continue to be available as you battle through the inevitable hate from the rest of the table.
Meren provides our primary (though not only) recursion engine, creatures provide our toolboxing and utility, and artifacts/enchantments provide (most) of our stax elements.
Notice:
This is not a deck for making friends, and it will not be well-liked at casual and carefree tables. Of the more-or-less finalized Commander decks I've built, this probably gets played the least often, as its gameplan of victory through oppression is, while very effective, also quite brutal (and many Commander lists flat-out can't play spells against it). If you are looking for a single deck to invest your hard-earned cash into, I would steer you away from this and towards something that will be better-received among friends. If you're not sure how your playgroup will respond, goldfish it for a while, proxy it up, and run a test game before you buy anything. You have been warned!
The Decklist
Quick Stats:
Average Nonland CMC:2.22 Spells < 4 CMC:61 Spells = 4 CMC:7 Spells > 4 CMC:1 Spells w/ No Color Req:14 G Costs:24 GG Costs:3 B Costs:21 BB Costs:8 BBB Costs:2 (B/G)(B/G)(B/G) Costs:1
Colors: Meren's colors of Green & Black provide access to:
Sacrifice effects
Forced discard, often random
Ramp, with options in the form of both creatures & instants/sorceries
Robust graveyard interactions
Excellent suite of tutors & draw effects
Noncreature targeted removal (from green)
These give us practically everything we need - many ways to lock down the board, break symmetry, generate card advantage, and find tools / engine pieces.
Converted Mana Cost: At 4 CMC, Meren sits in a great sweetspot for early plays - dropping acceleration on Turn 1 or Turn 2 enables a Turn 3 Meren. While likely not quick enough to dodge the first round of removal, this gives us many options on our timing for casting her (waiting for removal to be used on someone else, for example). If she were much cheaper, her effect would need to be balanced down; more expensive, and she wouldn't be versatile enough.
Power/Toughness (P/T): At 3/4, the most important aspect of Meren's P/T is that she is a strong blocker. Competitive decks typically aren't winning through creature damage, but smaller creatures may swing anyway (to activate abilities, or get in small amounts of damage when possible). Stax plays the attrition game, so having a Commander that can reliably block and kill most other creatures that will see play is very important to our staying power... if she were 2/2, the whole board could simply attack and kill us. Additionally, she is strong enough to provide lethal Commander damage to one or more players - once the board clears, 3 power is actually not bad (especially when paired with another 2-3 creatures).
Experience Counters: Crucial because we don't lose them if Meren dies. Once she hits 3-4 counters, the only way to stop her activating each and every turn is to keep killing her - which much of the rest of the deck is designed to prevent.
Triggered Ability: Let's break this down a bit more:
...At the beginning of your end step... - Even if Meren dies, her ability will trigger the turn we re-cast her, something which cannot be said for most triggered abilities (which occur at upkeep). If she returns a ramp creature, this means you'll continue to curve out and be able to cast her again even if she is killed again. This gives her fantastic staying power, which is necessary in a stax shell.
...return it to the battlefield... - This one needs no introduction - free recursion directly to the battlefield is extremely potent, especially when paired with ETB or leaves-the-battlefield triggers.
...Otherwise, put it into your hand... - Even if Meren has zero counters, we still have a card advantage engine. By building for a very low curve, we can cast, sacrifice/kill, and re-cast utility creatures to very quickly build up counters. Additionally, this provides us chaff for global discard effects. Though Meren typically gets to 3-4 counters quite quickly, this means we can drop discard effects very early without needing to wait to play out our hand.
Win Conditions
There is one major "lock" combo included in this decklist which typically results in a win shortly thereafter: Living Plane + Minister of Pain. Together, this combination destroys all of your opponents' lands, and the effect is repeatable through Meren's recursion. However, unlike the Necrotic Ooze and Mike + Trike combos, the Living Plane + Minister of Pain pieces are still extremely useful on their own, which was a key factor in my including this combo over the alternatives:
Living Plane is its own stax effect, causing lands to suffer from summoning sickness, be affected by far more targeted removal, and become vulnerable to boardwipes (making opponents less willing to wipe the board and destroy our own creatures)
Minister of Pain not only deals with low-toughness creature swarms, but also hits many of the best utility creatures in the format. I find Minister of Pain useful enough on his own to tutor for him frequently, even without the combo assembled.
The actual killing blow is dealt through combat damage, which is made much faster through Umezawa's Jitte, Creakwood Liege, and raw creature swarm (you won't one-shot people, but assembling 15+ attack power is quite easy and makes games swift). Once Living Plane + Minister of Pain has landed, you accumulate such an advantage that victory typically arrives very shortly thereafter.
Powerful Stax in Practice: The Reality
Before we dive into this list in detail, I want to make a few quick comments about constructing an effective stax list. I feel that a lot of players coming to Stax for the first time tend to romanticize the archetype, or misunderstand its purpose. So, a quick comment in general:
A powerful stax list seeks to control the game by always getting the most bang-for-your-buck.
AKA the goal is not:
To get 5 counters on Smokestack with a bunch of token producers in play
To make your opponents sacrifice all of their permanents every game
To make everyone discard their hand every turn
To make your opponents' spells cost 5 more
To do all of the above at once
These are all certainly powerful effects, and I'm not saying you won't achieve this from time to time with the list above; but these are extreme examples and shooting for them every game means you will sacrifice efficiency, speed, resilience, and ultimately, win-rate. The truth is, a Smokestack often only gets 1-2 counters - but combined with a huge density of other threats (discard, tap, tax), this is all you need to win the game. "Win-more" is a very real concept and something I see all the time - and while the games you do win tend to be bigger stomps, your win rate is usually much lower.
The point of stax is not to shut out our opponents entirely. Magic has been carefully designed - with good reason - such that achieving this tends to be extremely difficult and inconsistent. Rather, we want to utilize spells which efficiently exploit our opponents weaknesses, give us gamestate advantage, and put us in a winning position before they are able to stabilize.
Additionally:
"Breaking parity" simply means you are coming out ahead of your opponents. It does not mean you are unaffected by your stax elements. It simply means that you play better under your imposed oppressive conditions.
Thus, just because you choose to run Smokestack doesn't mean you need token generators to counteract it. Consider that, (a) if there are other recursion engines built in, and (b) you inherently play a much higher density of permanents than your opponents, we will naturally come out ahead (often far ahead) of our opponents in the end - even if it means sacrificing a few permanents along the way. Yes, in a vacuum token generators reduce your losses to a Smokestack - but they do very little on their own! This tradeoff in deck consistency / reliability is simply not worth it to save a few low-value permanents - especially when you're nabbing key permanents off your opponents!
(Note: It's not bad for our spells to help us break stax parity. However, it's bad if that's largely all a card does, because that means it has little or no utility otherwise.)
High-Level Goals & Objectives
This stax build is intended to be a firm control list, but unlike Blue permission we rely on permanents to starve our opponents and keep our engines running. Speed and consistency are a major concern if we are to establish a board presence before our opponents get off the ground - but the threats we drop must also be significant enough that our opponents cannot afford to simply ignore them. The pace of the game is largely dictated by the first 10 cards you see - your opening hand & first three turns. Personally this is a good rule of thumb regardless, but it applies even moreso with Meren. If you can't begin to lock out your opponents with the first 10, you're too far behind for it to matter. Therefore, we only have 10 random cards (11 with Meren) with which to achieve everything we need.
Obviously, a low curve and quality ramp are important factors in applying pressure to our opponents straight from the get-go. Take note that there are a number of one-drop mana dorks in this list - although they don't synergize with Meren's recursion ability as land-fetching creatures (for example, Viridian Emissary), their speed is simply unmatched and they are the golden ticket to staying ahead of your opponents. Sidenote: Consider that Viridian Emissary costs more than a mana dork, is far slower, and does not have immediate payoff; in exchange you get greater potential return-on-investment if you can recur him multiple times.... in reality, this rarely happens. A Viridian Emissary usually fetches one land and is never seen again - so a mana dork is simply the faster and more efficient choice.
When building your deck, note that over-ramping can be a problem, as it means you'll run out of steam to actually control the game. Of the first 10 cards, ~3 will be lands - meaning we have ~7 slots to play with for ramp and disruption/stax. 1-2 high-quality ramp pieces leaves 5-6 slots of threats. However, if we run too many ramp sources and draw 3-4 ramp cards in the first 10 (dorks + rocks), our threat density is literally cut in half!
General Card Selection
The whole point of stax is to limit your opponents resources and eliminate their cards - whether in-hand or on the battlefield. I think everyone is familiar with the archetypal stax cards (Smokestack, etc), but in a value-dense, recursion-centric stax list, we can afford to build around a more subtle "stax" theme:
If your opponents are spending removal on you, it means they are consuming turns, resources, and cards. Forcing opponents to respond to you also taxes and slows them!
In other words, simply having a massive density of threats and stax elements will achieve your goals one way or the other - either the stax elements will stick, OR your opponents will be forced to waste their time dealing with them. The key is simply to ensure that you can stay ahead of their removal. If you do, you win! Our many value and recursion engines let us come out on top of this tradeoff, and mean that most players simply won't be able to maintain pace, even if they are able to find answers to some of our threats.
When thinking about building a competitive deck, I recommend "forgetting" the concept of "late-game cards." Every card must be a powerful early-game card - dominance in the late game is achieved by utilizing powerful interactions between your strong early-game cards. This is a good ideal to strive for, because it will make your early game not only extremely potent, but also ridiculously consistent/reliable. Each selection on this list follows this rule.
When playing, the first objective is to slow the game down. Against Combo, this may mean a Sphere of Resistance or Null Rod; against creatures, this may mean Grave Pact, Minister of Pain, or Fleshbag Marauder. Whether you play Meren before or after your stax elements will vary depending on the situation you're in and the decks you're facing - if you're not afraid of removal, play her as quickly as possible as her engine is the core strength of the list. However, if your opponents are heavy on removal and counterspells it is important not to get overzealous. Casting her straight into removal results in a dead (and expensive) commander in a stax list, and your tempo grinds to a halt. Instead, force out removal & counters with other threats from the library. The threat density of this list is massive, and the creatures can ultimately be recovered later with Meren. Also, keep in mind that our list is constructed from the ground-up to play well from underneath stax effects - meaning even if Meren isn't on the battlefield, we are typically coming out ahead of our opponents.
The key strengths of this list are the sheer volume of threats it plays, its resilience to disruption, and its ability to maintain card advantage engines (continuously playing threats without running out of steam). Many of the deck's weaknesses are solved by simply playing through disruption: Meren herself has no evasion to dodge counterspells or removal, but rather than devoting undue slots to solving this issue, you simply cast a variety of other threats. Your opponents have two options: hold removal for Meren and allow you to scramble far ahead of them, or burn their removal on other permanents and provide an opening for Meren to stick on the battlefield. Either way we are happy and always moving towards establishing a dominant board position.
Ramp is an important aspect of the early/mid game. Because we are playing Stax, nonland ramp (mana dorks) are riskier vs. board wipes and do not accumulate additional advantage with repeated recursion cycles. However, the tempo they provide in return is MORE than worth it - mana dorks launch this deck out of the gates and enable explosive, powerful early-game moves. Additionally, they pair far better with Winter Orb.
The stax elements in the list are carefully chosen for their viability in a multiplayer environment. Low-CMC is highly preferred and key phrases here are, "each turn" and "each opponent." The exact stax package (and space it occupies) will vary from list to list, as the problems you'll need to answer may vary widely; however, a few overarching elements will almost universally appear:
Stax elements are both permanent-based (Bottomless Pit) and spell-based (Smallpox). This means we have access to fast one-time effects AND slower but accumulating effects.
Forced sacrifice effects, which serve as our primary removal and is both repeatable and symmetric (hits all opponents)
Tax and anti-untap elements, which seek to make spells grossly expensive and turn-consuming to cast. These will likely not lock opponents out singlehandedly, but are used to put you multiple turns ahead, the goal being to take advantage of Meren's amazing card advantage engines and establish...
Forced discard, which together with tax effects quickly puts opponents in topdeck mode. Forced discard is crucial to our gameplan as even with tax and sacrifice effects, opponents may still be able to play through; by forcing them into topdeck mode, our likelihood of winning increases substantially (many Tier-1 decks rely on multiple cards to solve major issues, rather than single topdecks).
Other silver bullets such as Null Rod and Contamination, which can singlehandedly lock out entire decks and/or secure our path to victory.
This is the goal of our stax package: tax, force sacrifice, force discard, and put opponents into topdeck mode while we are in card-advantage mode.
Outside of ramp and stax, almost every other card in the list is a card draw or card advantage engine. The decision to play stax is not one to be made lightly, and the pilot should be aware that in doing so, the entire table will likely turn its forces against you. Therefore, it is crucial that you have the card advantage to break stax parity, overcome your opponents' disruption/removal, and progress steadily and swiftly to victory. In short: Locking the game is necessary but not sufficient; you must generate enough steam to close out the game quickly and before your opponents manage to throw off their shackles.
How to Play the Deck
0. Identifying Your Opponents
As a stax deck, identifying who you are playing against is one of the most important aspects of winning the game. Before each game, consider each opposing commander and take note of how you expect them to try to win the game, because straight from the mulligan you will need to assemble the correct tools to stop them. Generally, the most important points to consider are:
How many opponents have fast combo lists? Do they rely on artifacts, creatures, storm, etc. to win the game?
Does an enemy's gameplan rely heavily on one or more creatures (i.e. their commander)?
Are you playing against other stax and control decks?
1. Opening Hand
The opening hand and mulligan are extremely important for dictating your success in a given game. In the opening hand of a standard game against unknown decks, we are usually looking for something like the following:
Such a hand provides a quick start out the gates, the option to play Meren quickly if needed, stax pieces to immediately slow down the game, as well as removal if necessary to stop a quick combo. However, you're not always going to get such a fantastic distribution of spells... when in doubt, the easiest "mental check" for the mulligan is to ask: (a) does the hand ramp quickly to 3-4 CMC? ...and, (b) does the hand give me 2-3 stax / removal spells so I can interact in a relevant way early-on?
You should also pay attention to the type of removal and stax pieces available to you in your opening hand and how these may interact with your opponents' win conditions. This is where it is important to know if your opponent relies on creatures, artifacts, storm, etc. to win the game. You may find that you have a great opening hand on paper, but if it does nothing to slow down your specific opponents, it's worth tossing back for the mulligan.
Keep in mind, locking the board down is the priority! Sphere of Resistance can stop many fast combo lines, while that tempting Phyrexian Arena can't.
2. Early Game
We almost always want to spend T1 playing a mana dork or mana rock - the acceleration is simply too good to ignore. The only exception to this is if you are playing against a set of decks that all fold to the same type of card. For example, if you are playing against 2-3 artifact-combo decks, it may be worth a T1 Vampiric Tutor into Null Rod... but in most cases it's better to spend the turn accelerating, particularly so you can land Meren while blue players are still tapping out to cast their own ramp/card advantage spells.
Once you're out the gate of the first turn you should focus on resolving as many permanents as possible for the following turns. For absolutely crucial spells you may need to dance around counters a bit - but in general, not utilizing all of our mana in the early turns means we are simply falling behind and failing to shut down the game.
There are generally three lines of play I follow:
Focusing on the Fast Lock: This is most useful against fast combo where it is crucial to simply slow things down. Here, an early stax piece or two can give you the time and space to start establishing your board afterwards - but going in the opposite order may mean you simply lose the game. This is typically the slowest opener as you are slowing the game down without card-advantage engines on-the-battlefield... however, it often hits opponents far harder and is the desirable play.
Fast Meren Toolbox: There are times when we want to land Meren ASAP, such as when playing against other stax decks (to outrace them on board advantage). If you follow this line, (a) you should be reasonably certain she will not be countered or immediately removed, and (b) you have enough utility creatures in-hand to actually make use of her abilities right away. This is typically the fastest opener in terms of ramp and card advantage, so if you can safely make this play (opponents busy doing their own thing, etc), it is usually worth going for it. Just note that it can be risky, as losing Meren even once can be a big tempo speedbump. It is generally desirable to cast Meren ASAP, but only if you expect she will stay alive.
No-Meren On-Deck: Perhaps your opponents pack a boatload of creature removal... or, perhaps your opening hand consists of mostly non-creature permanents / spells - it may be correct to delay casting Meren and simply focus on establishing your board advantage in other ways. This is the middle-of-the-road approach and is often best if you aren't quite sure what to expect, or do not have enough information to commit to a Fast Lock or Fast Meren.
3. Mid-Game and Late-Game
The goal of the mid-game is simply to find the missing tools needed to deny our opponents' win conditions while setting up for a win of our own. You may find yourself recurring creatures such as Caustic Caterpillar to deny key permanents, but you cannot keep your opponents' down forever finding "winning" lines (finishers) is the goal now. More than anything, do not get overzealous trying to maximize your Meren recursions - her engine does not win the game and the clock is always ticking (meaning - don't prolong the game just to get more recursions). Her engine simply provides us with a small advantage needed to stay ahead of the board while assembling a true win condition.
Generally you are looking to resolve permanents which deny entire strategies, such as the following:
Mindslicer - A hard reset button that keeps opponents from getting out-of-control. Combined with oppression on the board, a dying Mindslicer makes it incredibly difficult for opponents to plan lines of play (and ways back into the game)
Nether Void - Usually slows the clock enough for us to assemble a win condition (Living Plane combo).
Null Rod - Shuts out artifact-based decks (singlehandedly ends games against some)
From here, you can look to end the game swiftly with combat damage via Creakwood Liege and a massive creature presence on-the-board, or the Living Plane + Minister of Pain combo. If you must take the combat damage route, it is almost ALWAYS best to focus a single player at a time (do not distribute damage around). Completely eliminate the player who is the greatest threat to you first before moving on to the next player in the sequence. With a reasonable game-lock and board presence it is quite common to achieve 15+ power on the board, so a combat damage victory can be quite swift.
This list is inherently reactive in the mid- to late-game, and therefore it is difficult to pin down general advice and lines-of-play beyond what I have provided here - my best advice is to simply play as many games as you can, and pay attention to the decisions you face (and their outcomes)! Each game will be different, and you will need to adapt your play to your opponents' decks and the state-of-the-game. Prioritize universal effects as much as you can - these tend to put you ahead, and ALL of your opponents behind. Single-target removal is available, but don't jump the gun casting it unless the situation really calls for it... you will have plenty to do already. Finally, politicking is still very important - although it is often popular to dogpile on the stax player, in many cases his/her permanents are the only thing keeping someone else from simply comboing out and winning immediately. Use this to your advantage. Finally, don't become the "designated firefighter" at the table, trying to solve every threat that pops up. Your resources only stretch so far - and each time your opponents use their removal/counters on one another, that's one less threat you need to worry about yourself.
Stax Engines & Effects: A Breakdown
Let's get one thing out of the way right off the bat:
Stax effects alone are not wincons.
Stax effects are simply the tools that give us the time and space to win the game through combat damage.
With that in mind, let's jump right into our gameplan:
Destroy our opponents' not-OTB resources, AKA their hands
Keep this list in mind, as each Stax piece serves to fulfill one (or more) of these objectives. Additionally, know that you will need to accomplish all three of the above if you want to be competitive; achieving just one or two leaves opportunity for our opponents to run away with the game!
1. Slowing Down the Game: Tax, Tap, and Anti-Untap
The primary objective of tax effects is not necessarily to prevent opponents from playing spells entirely, but rather to force their tempo down to a more manageable level. In general, a tax of 1 has two crucial benefits:
Low-CMC spells (which make up the majority of decks at competitive tables) cost 50-100% more to cast, and
Higher-CMC spells are often pushed past the optimal "curve-out" point for their pilot's deck. What do I mean? Many lists are able to hit 3-4 lands quite reliably, but often the jump from 4 -> 5 and 5 -> 6 takes multiple turns. A tax of just 1 may set us back one turn, but set them back multiple turns as they wait to topdeck land.
Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst are arguably the best two tax effects in the game, costing only 2 and hitting a wide range of spells (hitting early, and hitting hard). Unfortunately, many of the "best of the rest" are in white and therefore off limits, but we do have Nether Void - a card that often acts as a double Time Stretch for 3B.
If you are not familiar with Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, and Root Maze, it is easy at first glance to fear their symmetry (as they slow down our own tempo in addition to our opponents'). However, time is perhaps the most important resource for us and these grant that. More importantly, a major focus of this list is Meren's recursion engine, which neatly sidesteps these restrictions by realizing powerful effects for zero cost. The recently-printed Manglehorn is pure gravy for us - providing another source of artifact removal and ETB-tap effect (very useful against Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and unlimited-draw Sensei's Divining Top combos)
When playing Tax and Anti-Untap effects, know that while this list as many ways to break parity, it does not do so as gracefully and effectively as others, and these stax elements are not our wincon (compare this to Candelabra of Tawnos shenanigans in Teferi stax). While we are often able to circumvent the restrictions on these permanents, their primary purpose is to trap our opponents in quicksand so that other locks (discard, forced sacrifice) and card advantage engines can be setup. Do not be alarmed if at times your own Winter Orb slows your gameplan as well - the idea is that, even if our tempo is slower, the net effect puts us well ahead of the rest of the table. (Though, there are definitely times when dropping an Orb is just plain wrong!)
2. Solving Permanents: Removal, Sacrifice, and Resource Denial
The importance of removal and disruption is obvious, and in this case, it comes in four varieties: one-time effects and repeatable effects. One-time effects allow us to eliminate the most important of our opponents' threats with precision, while repeatable effects prevent our opponents from gaining a foothold on the battlefield. There are many tools for eliminating On-The-Battlefield (OTB) permanents, but in general it is important to cover the following bases (examples of each included):
Instant-Speed Options: Interaction with the stack is important, so we play a mixture of highly efficient one-shot removal effects and repeatable, permanent-based effects. Note that some permanent-based effects can be accomplished at instant speed: Grave Pact paired with a sacrifice outlet is a prime example of what we're looking for; instant-speed, non-targeted removal. Meanwhile, spot removal rounds out or suite of tools for solving our enemies' most problematic permanents.
"Resource Denial" tools make OTB permanents useless, even if they aren't destroyed. Null Rod and Contamination are the heavy-hitters here. Where Tax and Anti-Untap effectively slow the game down, this duo is capable of locking out certain lists entirely. In many cases these will be your most potent silver bullets to shut down the most threatening opponent(s) or secure your win condition. Sometimes dropping them early will provide you with fantastic tempo advantage (especially if you have creatures that can generate green, in the case of Contamination), while at other times it is worth holding one until the proper moment (blue player is tapped out, etc). At the beginning of each game you should consider what each of your opponents is playing and whether you should be spending early tutors seeking these out.
3. Catching Opponents Empty-Handed
Empty your opponents' hands. Then keep them empty. In a four-player game, an effect which causes each opponent to discard a card is basically equivalent to three-for-one removal - cards your opponents hold in-hand are often finishers or combo pieces, and most cards we discard can be retrieved in one way or another (so losing them temporarily is of little concern). The most powerful aspect of a discard engine is simply that virtually no lists are built to deal with one, especially one which is up-and-running very early into the game. A player can spend countless hours theorycrafting and fine-tuning their list to curve out perfectly in the first few turns - but typically this will all fall apart if you can simply stick an early tax effect combined with repeated forced-discard.
As the game progresses, the goal of discard is::
To reduce the rate of opponents' board progression by limiting their ability to combo powerful spells
Force opponents to play spells on the turn they are drawn, significantly reducing the likelihood of encountering countermagic or instant-speed removal
To limit opponents' options for dealing with the state of the board (often, overcoming our effects requires more than one spell)
Limit your opponents' abilities to plan plays and future turns. Knowing they cannot hold cards not only gives them fewer play options, but also means it is more difficult for them to plan against you.
Enable you to execute confident actions, knowing that your opponents have few (if any) options for responding to you. This is crucial! Playing against an opponent with 5 cards-in-hand is totally different than playing against one with a single card-in-hand.
However, Forced-Discard is not the only tool at our disposal to attack our opponents' yet-to-be-played resources, and two in particular are worth mentioning... Chains of Mephistopheles and Chalice of the Void. Note that Chains of Mephistopheles is a very meta-specific card choice, and one which has weaved its way into and out-of my list many times... so although it may or may not appear in the decklist, it is worth discussing here:
Chains of Mephistopheles specifically targets combo and blue decks. Almost all blue lists are either running a plethora of Brainstorm and Frantic Search effects, or heavily draw through their decks to win the game... many do both. Reload effects like Timetwister are also common, and these provide fuel to opponents who otherwise would be stopped by our heavy discard suite. Chains is not only a silver bullet for many combo strategies, but also the nail-in-the-coffin for our discard, preventing our opponents from ever reloading their hands. This is extremely important to recognize! Once our discard engines are running and Chains is on the field, there are very few ways for our opponents to re-stabilize. The downside, however, is that it does not accelerate our own board position, and many decks simply don't care about this kind of effect. In general it may not be the most useful inclusion; but for the right meta, it can be a powerhouse.
Chalice of the Void is meant to almost always be cast for X=1. Why? At competitive tables, 1-cmc spells run rampant... whether removal (Swords to Plowshares), counterspells (Spell Pierce), tutors, etc.... Chalice protects Meren by blanking many of the most common removal spells and prevents many of the most common draw/tutor spells. While it does hit a few of our own spells, it is still highly assymmetric.
Selecting Stax: Creature or Non-Creature?
At some point in reading this you've probably asked yourself: in a Meren stax list, is creature stax (Liliana's Specter) or non-creature stax (Bottomless Pit) better? Ultimately, I have found that a healthy diversity between the two produces the best result. There are a number of reasons for this:
Most creature effects trigger on ETB or LTB - while this synergizes well with Meren, you only get one trigger per turn and thus can only realize one stax effect at a time. Non-creature stax, while less resilient to removal, does not suffer from this restriction.
Diversity of permanent types is inherently stronger vs. opponents' removal
Creature-based stax is easier to get rid of if necessary (many sacrifice outlets), while non-creature stax typically dodges forced-sacrifice triggers. There are pros and cons to both, and times you will prefer one option over the other. For example, Magus of the Abyss is easy to get rid of when you need to (sac to itself), while The Abyss sticks around after a Wrath of God (you won't be forced to sac it to itself)
Diversifying away from a completely creature-focused list sacrifices a small bit of recursion potential, but gives you more options, dodges removal better, and makes you less prone to finding yourself on the receiving end of a top-deck blowout.
Creature Package
Creatures are the meat and potatoes of this list and the fodder for Meren's recursion engine. Probably the most important aspect when selecting creatures for your list is ensuring that each creature you pick has a built-in two-for-one effect. This means it taps for mana, fetches a land, puts permanents into play, draws you cards, or recovers cards from the graveyard. Your creatures will die early and often - either at our own hand, or your opponents'... getting maximum value from them is the key to winning the game. If you have a choice, two-for-one effects based on the creature dying are preferred; not only are they often built-in methods for building Meren counters, but they also prevent difficult decisions (most of the deck is built around creatures dying, and effects which rely on creatures staying alive force you to choose between two suboptimal options rather than one synergistic path).
When selecting creatures for inclusion it is important to weigh both the creature's converted mana cost and the cost of any activated abilities attached to it. For example: Sylvok Replica and Viridian Zealot both cost a total of 4 CMC to cast and activate, but there are different tradeoffs between the two. The Zealot can be played or activated with only 2 mana up, while Replica requires 3 to be hard-cast. On the other hand, the Replica's color requirements are much less restrictive, and its ability ultimately costs less mana after repeated looping with Meren. There is not necessarily one right choice - but it is important to weigh these options when considering the other card choices in the list, as well as your style as a player. (I have Zealot in my list over Replica for a totally different reason - he doesn't get turned off by my own Null Rod)
This list wins the game through combat damage, and it is important to get combat damage in starting in the first few turns. This is because, although Stax plays like a control list, your opponents will still have some capacity to play through and it is important to win as swiftly as possible. The most important aspect of combat damage is the following: You should identify the opponent who is the greatest threat to your gameplan and exclusively attack that person until they are eliminated from the game. Some will say that this gameplan goes against the spirit of Commander, and they'd rather spread the damage around... to them I say, stop reading! This is not the deck for you. Spreading combat damage around not only paints a target on your back to all players, but also keeps more opponents at the table longer, thus greatly increasing the likelihood that they will be able to stop you from winning. If you are not willing to devote all attacks to eliminating one person, and then the next, and so on, know that you are willingly empowering the rest of the table (something a competitive build should be expressly designed - and piloted - not to do).
Protean Hulk
With the unbanning of Protean Hulk, many lists quickly adopted Hulk Combo as a wincon. While that strategy is undoubtedly strong, I've elected not to play it here for one simple reason - the combo elements largely do nothing unless all are assembled together. Even a single dead-draw in the early game can completely rock the boat of Stax Control, so we can't really afford to play these combos unless we're willing to give up consistency and resilience in our lock. I have moved for the Living Plane + Minister of Pain combo instead, the pieces of which are far more useful on their own!
Card Choices: Why Each Card Matters
Mana Dorks
Played:
Arbor Elf - We play a good density of forests and fetches, but I still worry about the consistency of this creature. However, it's still a mana dork at 1 and necessary for ensuring the proper early-game tempo.
Birds of Paradise - The best dork we run, as Birds grants access to B on Turn 2. As I mention in the "Lands" section, hitting colors in turns 1-4 is absolutely crucial - so birds is a MUST here.
Boreal Druid - We would prefer something that taps for colors, but we're already running everything that does.
Deathrite Shaman - Deathrite Shaman is arguably better than BOP as a mana dork. Crucially he is very easily cast (being B or G), and the ability to hate on graveyards is very useful against many archetypes. With the prevalence of fetchlands at competitive tables you should rarely have issues generating mana; this is one rare case where his power decreases in less competitive metas.
Elves of Deep Shadow - Our best tap-for-one-color dork. Why? Casting it means we already have G, so this guarantees access to BG.
Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves - Tapping for only G hurts, but efficient acceleration is still efficient! It would be a major boon for Wizards to print a Golgari flavor of Noble Hierarch, because hitting B and BB is so important... but these do for now.
Notable Exclusions:
Bloom Tender, Devoted Druid - Some of the best mana dorks in history, but at 2cmc they're not what we're looking for. It's all about those explosive T1 plays and cheap-as-possible drops.
Notable Exclusions:
The excluded land-fetchers largely all suffer from the same problem: the are simply not fast enough. In theorycraft land, repeatedly tutoring lands onto the battlefield is a strong ability. However, in reality, most of these creatures would only trigger once anyway, providing no more benefit than a standard dork - but without the incredible T1 speed.
Sakura-Tribe Elder - Simply the most flexible, efficient, and versatile land-fetching creature we can play. And yet, at 2 cmc it's still too expensive to run here - that T1 acceleration is just too good (Arbor Elf / Boreal Druid ended up making the cut over this).
Played:
Outside of mana dorks, we want the very best bang-for-the-buck rocks and nothing more. Adding a pinch of these strong effects keeps us on-pace with the rest of the table, but keeps us from being too vulnerable to our own Null Rod or an enemy Vandalblast.
Blood Funnel - Truly a hidden gem and one which is very powerful here. It is a more versatile and one-sided Arcane Melee effect for less than half the cost, with a built-in sacrifice outlet stapled onto it. The sacrifice effect may seem like a downside, but consider that: (a) the cost reduction typically enables you to cast another creature that turn, keeping you in the same place; and (b) we need good sacrifice outlets to trigger Meren, Grave Pact, etc. At the time of writing I haven't seen anyone else playing this card, which is strange to me!
Carpet of Flowers - A mainstay in competitive circles. If you (strangely) aren't playing against a lot of blue, don't bother running it - but in a given 3-4 player game it typically generates big mana very quickly.
Chrome Mox, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring - Crypt and Sol Ring are the best colorless rocks. Chrome Mox is here due to the large fraction of nonland cards we run.
Earthcraft - Incredibly powerful, but with the transition to a bunch of mana dorks, this is less strong than it once was. It may still deserve a slot, but I'm not sure we need the extra mana this would produce (at least in this way).
Mana Vault, Grim Monolith - Colors are simply too important for these to really be worth the slot - usually we want to lead with G + dork, then follow up with a stax piece (typically costing B or BB). It hurt a bit to cut these, but it hurt more to have so much colorless mana and nothing to do with it!
Mox Diamond - I am actively looking for a slot to put this in; the only reason not to run it would be the relatively low land count we run. It is roughly equivalent to Chrome Mox in power and definitely worth finding space for.
Mox Opal - Our relatively low artifact count, combined with lack of artifact tutors/generators means this is not a great choice.
Perilous Forays - If Wizards somehow released this card at 3cmc (hint: they never will) it would be an auto-include. Unfortunately, 5 is just too far out of reach - the whole point of ramp is to get to ~5 CMC, not to push past it... so this is not a great fit.
Sylvan Scrying, Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, etc. - These just don't mesh with the goals of the deck - on T2 / T3 we want to be locking down the board, rather than ramping out to 5+. Spending time ramping this way means we're missing our window where we can actually shut down our opponents.
Tax & Stax
Played:
Bottomless Pit - Random discard is best discard, and this is the only repeatable random discard at this CMC.
Chalice of the Void - The vast majority of spells in cEDH sit at 0, 1, or 2 CMC; thus, most of the removal and enemy win conditions we need to worry about can be solved by a well-placed Chalice. It takes skill and expertise to place a Chalice at the right time and X value, but doing so can really hose fast combo.
Contamination - The classic resource denial stax piece, a fast Contamination can sometimes win the game on its own. All other times it serves as a major headache to slow the game and force responses from your opponents. Between our many mana dorks and Meren's recursion abilities, breaking parity is quite easy!
Damping Matrix - Like Chains of Mephistopheles, this silver bullet completely shuts off many combos you may see in the meta. It seems the current EDH scene has quite a focus on creature and artifact combos, both of which this can elegantly solve (at both casual and competitive tables). That said, it may not be the best meta choice for everyone and can be a swing-slot if you find it is less than useful in your games.
Fleshbag Marauder & Merciless Executioner - Removal (which dodges Hexproof) + Meren counters. They don't solve all of your problems, but serve as mini board-wipes and can cause trouble for lists running relatively few, but important, creatures. These are two of my most commonly-picked recursion targets with Meren.
Grave Pact - The CMC is high, but resolving Grave Pact means Commander-reliant decks will have a hard time staying relevant. While not a true finisher, Grave Pact provides an enormous amount of board control and allows you to deal with problematic creatures much more easily.
Liliana of the Veil - There's a reason she costs so much, and it's because she fulfills multiple roles here - forced discard and forced sacrifice on a 3cmc permanent.
Liliana's Specter - A flying blocker and one-sided discard for the whole field. At 3cmc this effect is quick enough to run, though similar options at 4cmc (Cackling Fiend) are a little too slow and expensive.
Manglehorn - I think every green stax player let out a collective cheer when this card was spoiled. Green already lacked cheap ETB artifact removal and Root Maze effects on creatures - getting both at 3cmc is a real boon.
Mindslicer - One of the most powerful tools available to us for stalling out combo and resetting any advantages our opponents have accumulated. Not only is our own hand fairly small to begin with (since we play out fairly quickly), but we also have recursion engines to reclaim the key pieces we need. Mindslicer doesn't end the game, but I would still put it in the "finishers" category.
Nether Void - Absolutely hoses storm and similar builds. The major downside is the cost, though once down it makes the game significantly more difficult for spell-slinging decks to play.
Null Rod - The shiniest silver bullet we pack vs. artifact combo or ramp. An early Null Rod blanks a large fraction of popular strategies, in particular Chain Veil Teferi.
Phyrexian Revoker - A fantastic, easily-tutored silver bullet against a variety of combo strategies. Shuts down Isochron Scepter shenanigans, Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Necrotic Ooze, and plenty of other smaller effects. It can be found off our multiple tutors and Survival of the Fittest effects, making it a potent answer to decks which rely on key activated abilities to win. If your meta is running strong permanent-based combo, this is probably worth including.
Smallpox - I'm still not sure whether Pox or Smallpox is the right call here, but they do everything we need with great efficiency; wiping creatures, lands, and hands.
Trinisphere - The classic tax effects, these are bread-and-butter inclusions for a list like this. For tax effects, it's all about the tax percentage - these make most spell-slingers' cards 50%-100% more expensive, resulting in a massive tempo reduction for them.
Tangle Wire - A fantastic tool for stabilizing in turns 3-5. Dropping an early Tangle Wire gives us the time to make our land drops and get our engines online, while insulating us from fast combo insta-wins.
Winter Orb - One of the most iconic stax pieces, Winter Orb is yet another tool for slowing the game down. With our many mana dorks, Gaea's Cradle, Phyrexian Tower, and a few artifact rocks sprinkled in, we still power through a Winter Orb while many decks struggle to cope.
Notable Exclusions:
The Abyss - One of my favorite cards of all time and one of the reasons I originally wanted to build this deck... but unfortunately it's just a little too narrow and slow for inclusion here. At 3 cmc I think it'd be worth it, but
Cackling Fiend - The 3-4 cmc jump is a huge one for us; we don't want cards competing with Meren's slot, and if so, they need to have a pretty large global impact. Unfortunately Cackling Fiend is a bit overcosted - Liliana's Specter does the same thing for 1 cmc less, and Syphon Mind costs the same but draws you multiple cards.
Chains of Mephistopheles - Against certain decks and metas this should absolutely be included - so I encourage you to pay attention to your competition and consider whether this is a good pick. Long story short, this hoses heavy draw lists and draw-based combos, and there are simply no other cards that replace it nearly this cheaply.
Cunning Lethemancer - The key issue with Lethemancer is that he does nothing until the full turn after he comes into play. Necrogen Mists is better because it activates on each player's turn, thus turning on once you pass after playing it... but Lethemancer has no effect until you get back to your own turn.
Smokestack & Descent into Madness - These cards are simply too expensive and slow for what they do, taking a full turn to even begin turning on. If they were cheaper (2-3 cmc) the delay might be justified, but high cost AND the long delay before turning on means these just aren't worth it.
Desolation - This seems a bit too suicidal to me, though if your meta sees very few mana dorks it could be a great include. The major question is whether or not you run more nonland mana sources than your opponents - if so, this could be a great option, but heading into a blind meta it seems too risky to me.
Liliana, Heretical Healer - This second Liliana likewise serves two functions once she flips - forcing discard and acting as a second reanimation engine alongside Meren. Her frontside isn't very useful however, and she doesn't always flip immediately - so she isn't quite quick enough to make the cut.
Necrogen Mists - A powerful effect, but (a) it's a little bit too slow compared to the likes of Liliana's Specter, and (b) doesn't net the card advantage of Syphon Mind
Oppression - Unfortunately, this doesn't stop your opponent from casting their most important spells - it just tacks on a tax. I prefer effects that hurt our opponents' abilities to play their best options (such as Nether Void), rather than giving them the choice and option to still cast what they need to.
Painful Quandary - Very expensive and doesn't affect the boardstate. Additionally, like Oppression it doesn't actually prevent spells, it just makes them cost more.
Pox - Extremely strong and efficient; I'm having a hard time deciding whether this should be in the list over Smallpox.
Root Maze - very strong effect, I just can't find room for it. I hope it can come tacked onto a creature in the future, such as some variant of Manglehorn.
Static Orb - Perhaps one that should be included in the list, but I've been slightly underwhelmed with it in testing. This may make an entrance eventually, but for now I just can't find the right slot for it.
Words of Waste - We have enough tax effects already; giving up our own card draws seems like a losing proposition. Activating this ability means we don't see our draws AND can't get those cards into our graveyards, while our opponents still have the chance to draw and cast their cards before we get to our turn. At worst, our opponents accumulate cards in their graveyard for potential use later on. Either way, we get the short end of the stick.
Dismember, Shriekmaw, Umezawa's Jitte - Spot removal for creatures. While we are a bit light in this area, we also run a few sweepers and quite a few forced sacrifice (but non-targetting) effects.
Notable Exclusions:
Acidic Slime - Too expensive. Not much else to add!
Bone Shredder - Very similar to Shriekmaw, but slightly more expensive to cast initially. However, this card is one to consider if you run a Protean Hulk package as it consumes much less of the total CMC. Outside of Protean Hulk, however, Shriekmaw is the better choice.
Bone Splinters - A bit too narrow and restrictive; for almost all cases, Dismember is simply better
Krosan Grip - Split second is nice, but does not come for free - and Grip is just a bit too expensive and narrow for what we get out of it.
Sylvok Replica - A hot contender for Viridian Zealot's slot (total casting + activation cost is the same). I simply prefer the lower initial casting cost of Viridian Zealot. However, the more strict colors mean that Viridian Zealot may come out in favor of Sylvok Replica.
Tutor & Card Draw
Played:
Birthing Pod, Entomb, Evolutionary Leap, Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, Worldly Tutor - Creature tutors, many of which are repeatable. Our main recursion engine revolves around creatures, we run a large variety of toolbox critters, and half of our main combo is a creature (Minister of Pain). Thus, creature tutors are crucial for accessing the right options down at the right times. Entomb can technically find anything, but almost always finds a utility creature.
Dark Confidant, Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena - Standard suite of black draw permanents. We have relatively few other draw engines so cutting these would be a pretty big mistake.
Grim Haruspex, Skullclamp - Card draw that triggers off our creatures dying. The most important part of these cards is that no extra cost needs to be paid to activate the card draw, unlike many alternative engines. Thus, we don't need to hold up mana to earn the draw - simply losing a creature does enough.
Sylvan Library - This card should require no introduction. The best draw permanent in green for a very reasonable cost.
Notable Exclusions:
The cards listed below are primarily not in the list for two reasons: (a) they are too expensive for the effect (we already have similar effects for cheaper), and (b) we don't really have room or need for more of these effects, for risk of diluting our stax elements too far.
Fecundity - This seems appealing at first, but goes against the philosophy of stax (suppressing everyone uniformly). Even if we come out ahead on the card draw, giving marginal card draw to your opponents can mean that fast combo simply wins.
Matter Reshaper - Unfortunately our tight color requirements mean we are heavily focused on generating colors our first few turns - which means, generating colorless reliably becomes more difficult. This card is powerful, but the consistency in casting it isn't quite there.
Creakwood Liege - This card looks like it doesn't fit at first, but I have been incredibly pleased with it. More than any other card, the Liege generates both amazing attack power and a strong defensive wall vs. creature swarm. Without it, our clock is quite slow - even after landing our major combo. With it, achieving 15+ power on the board is quite easy and it allows for a swift win.
Yahenni's Expertise - An underutilized card in EDH, this is a real house in Meren stax. It wipes the floor of almost all utility creatures your opponents will play (that is, most of the creatures in cEDH), and Meren just dodges dying to it. Casting a 3cmc spell for free at the same time? This is a fantastic gem.
Sensei's Divining Top - SDT just doesn't fit our tempo that well, and there aren't that many times it feels like the right choice. T1 we'd much rather be playing a dork, and T2-4 are typically already full with other control options. While a good sink for extra mana, it just doesn't feel like we ever have that mana to spare - and often 1 mana makes or breaks a turn.
Syphon Mind - This one feels really great at the right time - a big draw spell AND forced-discard on your opponents, but in an early hand it feels expensive and underwhelming.
Yawgmoth's Will - I'd like this to be in the list, I just don't know where it would fit and what would come out. I'm also not sure quite when it would be played, since usually we have plenty to occupy us without it.
Lands
Played:
Hitting colors is absolutely crucial in this list, so our selection of lands includes very few which tap for colorless - note the absence of Strip Mine, Wasteland, and other competitive staples. However, "hitting colors" is a very specific term for us - it almost always means: (a) landing G T1 for a mana dork, and B/BB on turns 2/3 respectively for our stax pieces. Thus, we play the full gamut of ETB-untapped duals and fetches, while excluding almost all lands that tap for colorless. Missing colors early-game means we don't hit our critical drops as needed and almost always guarantees a loss.
Ancient Tomb - One of the very few taps-for-colorless lands we play, due to the raw acceleration it offers. A dual land, mana dork, + Ancient Tomb in hand means Turn-2 Meren or stax piece, and no other land offers this level of acceleration.
Bayou, Overgrown Tomb - The best dual lands on offer, every Golgari list should be playing these.
Bojuka Bog - The fact this ability is tacked onto a land is pretty incredible - but "ETB tapped" is a massive downside. I'm still not sure if this belongs in the list, or if it should be replaced with a basic land and I should just find a slot for Scavenging Ooze in the main list.
City of Brass, Mana Confluence - Included to further ensure we hit colors at the right times. I typically don't play these for fear of nonbasic land hate, and it is something to be aware of if you see a lot of Blood Moon effects in your meta. But, colors are simply too important here.
Gaea's Cradle - We play enough creatures that this often taps for GG or GGG. However, be wary of Cradle in an opening hand, as it is often a dead card. Drawing it at T2-T3+ is fantastic, as is finding it with Crop Rotation... but in an opening hand, ensure you have other lands and acceleration to get you where you need to go. One other land + mana dork + Cradle is definitely doable and a strong opener, but only if you don't expect your dork to die - in which case removal 2-for-1's you.
Phyrexian Tower, High Market - The best sacrifice effects available to us, with Phyrexian Tower being the superior choice by far. EVERY Meren list that can afford it should be playing Phyrexian Tower since it does everything we need, providing a sac outlet and access to the crucial BB needed for many of our most potent spells.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Incredibly useful for hitting our many multi-B spells, and a common target with Crop Rotation. Even though it doesn't provide the acceleration of Gaea's Cradle, sometimes getting access to multi-B at instant speed is simply what you need.
Forest, Swamp - As mentioned a few times above, keeping a healthy count of basic lands reduces our vulnerability to nonbasic land hate. At this point the deck runs quite smoothly and only has trouble with colors in very rare cases. While I'm not 100% sure the final ratio is set in stone, I do believe it's very close to this.
Notable Exclusions:
Blooming Marsh - Just a little bit too restrictive to see play in our list.
Forbidden Orchard - With many Fleshbag Marauder effects in our list, the last thing we want to do is provide our opponents with fodder for sacrifice.
Grim Backwoods, Miren the Moaning Well, Scavenger Grounds - Strong effects, but the lack of tapping for colors really kills these options. I grant that the effects ARE strong, just not universally useful to justify the lack of access to colors.
Rishadan Port, Strip Mine, Wasteland - Again, not tapping for colors is the major problem here, but there is a second issue with these cards - we sacrifice our own board position to hold down a single opponent, leaving the rest of the table unaffected. These cards are undoubtedly auto-includes in 1v1 Commander, but in multiplayer there just aren't many times where I want to 1-for-1 my own lands with a single enemy.
Volrath's Stronghold - A powerful card, yes, but even so, I don't believe it justifies the potential lack of access to colors in the early game. We have enough resilience that this effect is not needed in return for potentially losing the game off access to colors in our opening hand.
Weaknesses
Graveyard Shroud: While it (thankfully) doesn't exile our graveyard, Ground Seal is still a problem for us, as Meren's reanimation ability requires you to target a creature in your graveyard... something Ground Seal prevents.
No major changes this time around. Sakura-Tribe Elder was the last of the two-drop ramping creatures, and it's time he finally makes his exit. Syphon Mind feels great at some points, but at others very underwhelming and expensive. There is a LOT we can do with 4 CMC, and I'm not sure if this one is right. This may make a re-entrance in place of another spell, but for now it's making way for a mana dork.
In what is perhaps an unexpected change, this update sees the removal of Sensei's Divining Top from the list. Why? It just doesn't fit our tempo that well, and there aren't that many times it feels like the right choice. T1 we'd much rather be playing a dork, and T2-4 are typically already full with other control options. While a good sink for extra mana, it just doesn't feel like we ever have that mana to spare - and often 1 mana makes or breaks a turn.
The replacement card is a very meta-call for me, so it may not be the right choice for everyone. I play against a lot of artifact and creature-based combo, so stopping both of these combo lines is a major concern for me. It is also extremely effective against the currently-very-popular Thrasios, Triton Hero. However, this could be a very dead card in some playgroups. I could easily see Drown in Sorrow, Putrefy, Pithing Needle, Scavenging Ooze, Loaming Shaman, etc. in this slot.
This update addresses the slow tempo of Lili #2 and introduces a powerful new tool vs. combo. Phyrexian Revoker stops all kinds of shenanigans, from Isochron Scepter combos and Teferi, Temporal Archmage activations to Necrotic Ooze and Aetherflux Reservoir. It is also easily cast, easily tutored, and easily recovered via Meren, giving us much greater flexibility in answering threats of this type.
Alrighty, some major changes happening the past few days. I've been really re-examining this list from a competitive standpoint, and have decided to restructure much of how it operates (especially through the first few turns). The major changes are:
Mana Dorks - Although they are far less syngergistic with Meren and our stax strategy, the greater speed/tempo of dorks is just unmatched by land-fetching creatures. Additionally, although land-fetchers have better long-term value if reanimated multiple times, realistically this doesn't happen - and it's simply better to explode out of the gates as quickly as possible. Thanks to those who had mentioned mana dorks in this thread - it took some further discussion and experimentation for me to realize how much stronger they are, despite the anti-synergy.
Nonbasics - I try to stay away from these when possible, but hitting guaranteed colors (esp. G on T1) is now so important that the basics count may get lower again.
Results:
Average CMC lowered from 2.43 to 2.18...
...and much higher likelihood of 3+ mana available on T2, for much more explosive starts
Much higher likelihood of landing T2 disruption or stax piece, thereby increasing chances of staying ahead of fast combo
Regularly landing T2/T3 Meren is commonplace; before, the chances were not so great
Much more removal to disrupt combo and deal with OTB threats
Imperial Seal replaces Green Sun's Zenith; I may try to find a slot for GSZ in a later iteration, but the ability to find silver bullets against combo (i.e. Null Rod) is stronger than GSZ, especially if we are strapped for mana under a Winter Orb or Nether Void.
Chains of Mephistopheles specifically targets combo and blue decks. Almost all blue lists are either running a plethora of Brainstorm and Frantic Search effects, or heavily draw through their decks to win the game... many do both. Reload effects like Timetwister are also common, and these provide fuel to opponents who otherwise would be stopped by our heavy discard suite. Chains is not only a silver bullet for many combo strategies, but also the nail-in-the-coffin for our discard, preventing our opponents from ever reloading their hands. This is extremely important to recognize! Once our discard engines are running and Chains is on the field, there are very few ways for our opponents to re-stabilize.
Chalice of the Void is meant to almost always be cast for X=1. Why? At competitive tables, 1-cmc spells run rampant... whether removal (Swords to Plowshares), counterspells (Spell Pierce), tutors, etc.... Chalice protects Meren by blanking many of the most common removal spells and prevents many of the most common draw/tutor spells. While it does hit a few of our own spells, it is still highly assymmetric.
T2 acceleration (for T3 Meren) remains incredibly potent, and Bloom Tender / Devoted Druid (who makes his re-entrance) serve that niche. While there are of course 1-cmc mana dorks available, these offer the potential to tap for 2 and thus provide some additional reach and long-term value; Devoted Druid in particular can help to pay for T3 Meren, then immediately blow himself up to get her a quick counter. It's possible these two will be replaced by 1-cmc dorks, but that decision will be made pending some testing to see how well these curve out / conflict with other spells on T1-T2-T3. Birds of Paradise and Elves of Deep Shadow would top the list for 1-drops, and while they enable much more explosive T2's, they offer less in return as the game goes on. On the other hand, Courser of Kruphix is just too slow to be worth the slot here.
Blood Funnel is some sweet little-known tech that I've finally decided should make its entrance, as it does practically everything we want and the "drawback" is actually often a perk for us. However, only testing will prove whether it will be around to stay.
Swiftfoot Boots and Sword of Feast and Famine are strong at times, but clunky at many others, requiring setup and investment to get value out of them. This list wants to be repeatedly playing creatures and other threats, and these siphon resources without significantly hindering our opponents. On average, I see Carpet of Flowers and Blood Funnel giving back more than these offer (even if the equipments have a high potential ceiling).
With lots of removal added in recent changes, I find Damnation less necessary than ever. It can be a great answer at the right time, but at others is high-cost anti-synergy. If I find I need more boardwipe, I will likely return to something like Yahenni's Expertise.
Umezawa's Jitte is in for Basilisk Collar - while it doesn't offer deathtouch, the potential lifegain is greater, and it also offers options for spot removal. Thanks to TheDeathMessage for the recommendation.
May 9, 2017: More Toolboxing - And Even More Removal
Damping Matrix is not always that reliable (against many decks it does nothing). Oracle of Mul Daya is undeniably strong, but she's one of the few cards at higher CMC which doesn't guarantee some immediate return-on-investment. Not only this, but because she's towards the top of the curve anyway, the added ramp is not necessarily that helpful at that point - since we've already more or less curved out. In that regard, the 2- or 3-drop creatures serve our ramp needs better.
Protean Hulk needs very little introduction. Although this list avoids the typical combos (to avoid diluting the control/stax consistency), Hulk is basically an entwined Tooth and Nail in our list. Not only this - but it can be cheated into play in the early game through Reanimate, and late-game can be cycled to repeat the effect each turn. Since many of our tools and answers come stapled onto creatures, this has found a comfortable home in this list.
The potential of Aluren and Strionic Resonator are undeniable - but unfortunately they just don't quite match the tempo / pace of the rest of the deck. Specifically, our hand is typically empty of creatures by the time Aluren comes down - and Strionic Resonator is a bummer in an early hand.
Pestilence serves two purposes - it effectively wipes tokens at instant speed and on-the-cheap. It also serves as a convenient way to wipe some of our own small creatures when the situation calls for it (to trigger Grave Pact, draw cards off Grim Haruspex, etc). Bone Shredder is less-than-optimal removal, but unfortunately Wizards hasn't printed something similar since the more recent de-restriction of black kill spells (namely, modern kill spells not caring about color). Bone Shredder provides repeated targeted removal with built-in sacrifice effect, and crucially its CMC is 2 less than Shriekmaw. This means it can be fetched together with any other 3 CMC creature off Protean Hulk.
Land changes are here to increase our count of basic lands - one gaping hole in this deck is a weakness to a very early (i.e.
T2) Blood Moon, as a friend kindly showed The four lands above aren't often utilized for their abilities, so typically just tap for 1... in many ways, simply not as good as basics. Removing Wasteland and Strip Mine may sound crazy, but with so many other ways to lock the game down, it's difficult to justify one-for-one'ing yourself to destroy one land and put yourself behind the others at the table (there are enough ways to deal with issues already).
I like the idea of Kokusho, but every time I wanted to fetch him, the game already felt won - the payoff is large, but early-game he doesn't offer much. By comparison, Basilisk Collar offers excellent incremental value, extends the combat reach of small creatures, and gains back life lost to Phyrexian Arena and similar effects.
This housecleaning update reflects some of the changes in deck construction this list has slowly undergone in the last few months - no major shifts in strategy, just some direct swaps that better interact with the current card choices:
If the plan is to always reanimate your own creatures, I prefer Unearth over Reanimate (the versatility of cycling is worth it). However, the fact Reanimate can utilize your opponents' graveyards makes it, in my opinion, the better choice here.
Miren, the Moaning Well is underwhelming - it's just too expensive, not fetchable, doesn't produce colors, and dies to non-basic hate. A basic Swamp takes the slot.
Earthcraft and Liliana's Specter take Farhaven Elf's and Yavimaya Granger's spots. The continued downward trend in CMC means the list was a little heavy on ramp, and 3 CMC was a large price to pay for these (especially compared to the 2 CMC Sakura-Tribe Elder). Earthcraft is fantastic (creatures can immediately tap for mana without needing haste), and Liliana's Specter gives us additional forced discard.
In the coming games, I will be paying close attention to whether these changes have hurt the deck's early tempo and curve; there's a chance we may see a return of 1-2 ramp elements, but with the average CMC so much lower than it was just a few months ago, I suspect it will still curve out just fine while having significantly more early-game bite and ability to sustain itself.
This change reflects a need for slightly more targeted removal, as well as eliminating 1 of 2 remaining cards over 4 CMC (the other being Kokusho). While Wurmcoil Engine is fantastic on the board and a great finisher, its primary purpose was to gain back life lost to Necropotence and the like. In this regard, non-hasty Lifelink is just a little too slow, especially if opponents manage to destroy it once. By contrast, Kokusho can regain 10-15 life in a single turn and is a true finisher / sustain mechanism. The potential tempo loss of an early-hand Wurmcoil Engine was simply too much price to pay, so it's gone.
Attrition is in for now, as it provides repeatable targeted removal for lists running a higher creature count (for which forced sacrifice doesn't always hit the prime targets). I feel the list is slightly light on creature removal, though with as many tutors as are in the list, adding much more may overdo it. But, the next potential additions would be Shriekmaw (which is much more tutorable than Attrition) and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale... both have been in the list before and removed for one reason or another. Still thinking of what would be cut for these.
Hi FireStorm4056, I'm very interested in this idea, keep on with this amusing deck
Do you feel some fatties would make the cut for reanimation purposes, due to - on paper - Meren getting counters easily? Or is it to cute? You would have to cut Bob, for sure...
I've played a bit with higher-CMC fatties, but ended up feeling torn when trying to make decisions... namely, I felt reluctant to charge into the lockdown effects like Sphere of Resistance, Nether Void, etc. ASAP.... found that higher-cost creatures made me fearful of ruining my own gameplan, while keeping things very cheap meant I could afford to drop these even without much board presence and still accelerate hard with virtually any opening hand. With (almost) everything < 4 CMC the lockdown is very consistent (and FAST!) and we're also a lot less afraid of locking ourselves out at the same time.... I'm actually considering cutting Kokusho and Wurmcoil Engine, but the lifegain is just so good with Bob / Necropotence and sometimes necessary if we stall a bit and can't close out the game quite as quickly. Unfortunately I haven't found a better option in the 3-4 CMC range...
That said, open to suggestions! Any particular ideas you have in mind?
Not any particular ideas yet, just wondering because I love when I reanimate fatties in my gifts ungiven modern deck and I thought it would be añso viable here
Have you considered adding The Tabernacle at Pendrell's Vale? It seems to fit the taxing/sacrificing creatures theme of the deck.
Yes I have! Tabernacle is something I have been keeping a close eye on for a long time now (and which used to be in the list just under a year ago). At the time it didn't quite fit, but with the list where it is now, I think it could be a great meta choice depending on what is running around in your playgroup. I'm 50/50 on it currently - just not sure what I would want to cut for it.
Right now things still feel slightly light on creature removal, though the recent swap-in of Attrition should help with that. Otherwise, Tabernacle & Shriekmaw are the top contenders for (re)addition, just trying to find the right slot for one or both.
Absolutely, I plan to do quite an in-depth analysis of both the cards I've selected, and others that are viable options for different metas (along with details as to why one might choose certain options over others).
To discuss some of the cards you mentioned:
Aluren: The simple reason this is here is to break parity for our stax elements. Yes, our opponents can take advantage of Aluren too - but at least in my (relatively creature-light) meta, it disproportionately advantages Meren's gameplan while allowing Nether Void, Winter Orb, etc. to lock out non-creature spells (note you still have to pay Nether Void's tax, but the total cost to us is still much lower). If you are in a creature-heavy meta (lots of Animar, etc) this is probably a dangerous inclusion, but otherwise, the reality is most lists just can't abuse it nearly as often or well as Meren (especially as many creature-heavy lists are rather top-heavy on CMC). Somewhat counter-intuitively, a well-timed Aluren actually improves our ability to lock out the game, as we can drop multiple creatures that force discard, destroy key permanents, etc.
Strionic Resonator: This one is a little more obvious, as the deck runs rampant with triggered abilities. Here are a few examples of some characteristic abilities it can double-trigger:
Earthcraft: Earthcraft is completely broken even without going infinite. It turns every creature we have into a Birds of Paradise, with Haste, for 2 mana. It means creatures returning from the graveyard can be used for their abilities and tapped for mana the turn they return, then sacrificed immediately (to other abilities) if need be. Even with just two creatures on the field it is more than worth it simply for how quickly it puts you ahead of the rest of the field, especially with tax effects in place. I personally think it's one of the single most undervalued cards in all of Commander, regardless of whether you plan to abuse it and go infinite or not.
You are absolutely right, I haven't had a chance to take a great look at the full spoilers yet, but Manglehorn is a perfect fit. The following are a few changes I plan to test in the coming week(s):
+1 Manglehorn
+1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (would like to fit Crop Rotation and/or Sylvan Scrying in to make this easier to find)
-1 Matter Reshaper (not bad, and good synergy, just too slow)
-1 Swamp (pushing the lower limits of the curve to see if we are still OK)
Yeah, I'd probably recommend steering clear of Aluren in your meta! Tabernacle is worth taking a close look at (if you have one, or your group is cool with proxies). Depending on the rate of activated abilities you see, you might consider Cursed Totem and making some adjustments accordingly... my meta has always been a little too creature-light for it, but it's sometimes a shining star.
Yahenni's Expertise is very spicy vs. creature-swarm metas... a little on the higher curve but something that's been on my watchlist for some time now and not beyond the realm of reason. It's not something I've personally tested, but I would be very interested to hear people's thoughts / experiences with this if you've got any!
A card I really wish we had a black version of for this exact scenario - Æther Flash... alas, the best we get is Night of Souls' Betrayal which is just too little bang for the buck...
I'm already running Arena, so no worries there. My immediate thoughts on Graveborn Muse:
4 cmc is a lot to invest for a 2nd Arena (since I don't really have other zombies; if Meren herself were a zombie so draw-2 would be reliable, this would change things a lot!)
I wish Muse's draw happened EOT, so that we could benefit from it immediately... as it stands, if we cast it and it bites the dust on an opponent's turn, it won't come back until the end of our next turn and then still won't get us a card until the following turn, and ultimately won't start netting cards until the turn after that... just slightly slow with no real way to get incremental value in the short-term.
Not totally opposed to the Muse, but I think some of the other options have distinct upsides - Grim Haruspex for example often draws similar cards per turn, but is more immediately abusable, discourages removal, has lower CMC, etc.
What has Muse been competing with for slots in your list? Any more insight as to how it's run for you over some of the alternatives?
The other two cards I'm really aiming to squeeze in are Imperial Seal and Trinisphere - just not sure where they would go, as there is very little chaff left to cut. Would love to hear people's thoughts!
Hi guys. I'm playing Meren as a stax aswell but my list is greatly inspired by Gromgrom's list. I just want to ask on what do you think about the new unbanned card Protean Hulk?
This has been on my mind the past few days, and currently I'm not exactly sure what (if anything) I'd like to do with Hulk. Thus far I just don't have enough datapoints to make a good decision on this yet. Even if you don't play some variant of Hulk combo, he's almost too good to ignore in a list like this since he can tutor for so many things at once. The only question in my mind is whether the deck has space for a second high-CMC spell, or if this potentially hurts our early game too much. On the other hand, looping a Hulk each turn could really improve the wincon clock. I suspect he will end up here eventually, but I may need to make some other changes to make it work (more acceleration, or something of that sort). Unfortunately, testing is a rather slow process for me as Meren typically receives groans from the table and therefore doesn't see that much play...
It's possible we could replace Kokusho entirely and build around some variant of Hulk combo as a wincon, but I find this to be underwhelming unless you're willing to really go the distance (AKA devote multiple slots to combo off immediately). At that point we begin diluting the focus of the deck, and you are probably better off with a ground-up combo/control build like Gromgrom's.
My current thinking: Damping Matrix is not always that reliable (against many decks it does nothing). Oracle of Mul Daya is undeniably strong, but she's one of the few cards at higher CMC which doesn't guarantee some immediate return-on-investment. Not only this, but because she's towards the top of the curve anyway, the added ramp is not necessarily that helpful at that point - since we've already more or less curved out. In that regard, the 2- or 3-drop creatures serve our ramp needs better.
After an evening of games, I can report that Protean Hulk is here to stay. He toolboxes very very well - and although we don't play him as a (combo) wincon, the board advantage he can generate is simply too great to ignore.
The potential of Aluren and Strionic Resonator are undeniable - but unfortunately they just don't quite match the tempo / pace of the rest of the deck. Specifically, our hand is typically empty of creatures by the time Aluren comes down - and Strionic Resonator is a bummer in an early hand.
Pestilence serves two purposes - it effectively wipes tokens at instant speed and on-the-cheap. It also serves as a convenient way to wipe some of our own small creatures when the situation calls for it (to trigger Grave Pact, draw cards off Grim Haruspex, etc). Bone Shredder is less-than-optimal removal, but unfortunately Wizards hasn't printed something similar since the more recent de-restriction of black kill spells (namely, modern kill spells not caring about color). Bone Shredder provides repeated targeted removal with built-in sacrifice effect, and crucially its CMC is 2 less than Shriekmaw. This means it can be fetched together with any other 3 CMC creature off Protean Hulk.
Land changes are here to increase our count of basic lands - one gaping hole in this deck is a weakness to a very early (i.e.
T2) Blood Moon, as a friend kindly showed The four lands above aren't often utilized for their abilities, so typically just tap for 1... in many ways, simply not as good as basics. Removing Wasteland and Strip Mine may sound crazy, but with so many other ways to lock the game down, it's difficult to justify one-for-one'ing yourself to destroy one land and put yourself behind the others at the table (there are enough ways to deal with issues already).
I like the idea of Kokusho, but every time I wanted to fetch him, the game already felt won - the payoff is large, but early-game he doesn't offer much. By comparison, Basilisk Collar offers excellent incremental value, extends the combat reach of small creatures, and gains back life lost to Phyrexian Arena and similar effects. Unfortunately with so many pain effects, it does feel like we need a tool of some sort to gain life, and there aren't that many others available to us. Of the options available, the Collar currently seems to be the most bang-for-the-buck.
I'm curious. How do you feed to your own Smokestack when it's online since you're not running any token producers or the like that much? And what is your primary wincon? Just beatdown while pinning them down with the stax pieces?
=Grim haruspex is probably a better card drawer thanGraveborn muse. I just like the idea of a recurable draw engine. My experience is that the muse lays down until it gets boardwiped by mass removal. People dont like to use removal on it.
For life gain. I use Disciple of bolas. I have to admit that I run a few more creatures with higher cmc than you are. But the value it is generating is just unbelievable. Dont know about the collar, but you need a combat step and creatures on the board to get value out of it (tho i think it is lots of fun with pestilence demon. While it might extend the combat reach of small creatures by turning them into little rattlesnakes, the opponent just stops attacking you until he finds removal. Now you can think that it did a good job by stopping the opponent to attack you, it didn't serve its goal by gaining life to offset lifeloss for the carddwrawing . I think Kokusho might be better just because it is easy to reanimate and you only need to sacrifice it, which is no problem with the deck
I have been on and off the fence about Disciple of Bolas for a while now, and despite the massive upsides I've always had a few reservations about adding it:
It requires another creature to work, so it doesn't perform in any of the following scenarios: in your starting hand (often), with an empty board, or when an opponent has an answer-or-die spell/effect/permanent. Since these are arguably the times the deck is weakest, most of my changes try to address these issues rather than play into them.
Most of the creatures in the deck are Power 2 or less, making this oftentimes an overcosted Divination (initially)
Meren only brings back one creature per turn, and I find this almost always needs to be a utility creature of some sort - whether to force sacrifice, discard, destroy problem permanents, etc. In other words, to maintain board advantage, there often just isn't time to spend recursion cycles on something that doesn't directly affect the other players. This was a problem with Kokusho too. The nice thing about Basilisk Collar is that it provides incremental lifegain and a combat threat without expending Meren's ability.
Thus far, most of this deck's card advantage engines take advantage of Meren's ability rather than expend it... which is why I tend to favor Evolutionary Leap, Grim Haruspex, Foster, etc. over draw attached to specific creatures. These let us maintain card advantage while also utilizing toolbox effects every turn, rather than having to choose between the two.
I'm curious. How do you feed to your own Smokestack when it's online since you're not running any token producers or the like that much? And what is your primary wincon? Just beatdown while pinning them down with the stax pieces?
Let me preface this by saying - I am still not 100% sold on Smokestack, simply because it's so slow. It's power is undeniable, but its mana cost relatively high and trigger timing gives opponents plenty of time to respond. I keep considering whether I should cut it, but then I sit down and play the card again am reminded that there is simply nothing else (that's legal, at least) that locks how it locks, and closes games how it does. It's almost surely here to stay. That said, I think there are a few points worth mentioning:
I think many Meren players have an overly romantic vision of how Smokestack often operates. Sprinkled into a normal Commander deck/game where people curve out as usual, a Smokestack requires multiple counters to really have a noticeable impact, since players are already more or less ahead of it. However, when you are all-in on stax and everyone is always short on permanents straight from the get-go, 1-2 counters on a Smokestack is often enough to seal the deal for you.
Another misconception about Smokestack: you don't have to sustain it forever, you just need to sustain it longer than everyone else. If you on average bleed away 1 permanent per turn while everyone else bleeds away 3, you will still win the game. It's easy to make the mistake of investing excess time/energy into losing nothing to Smokestack, when really you should focus on getting the best bang for your buck out of it.
We don't run many token producers (only Creakwood Liege), but there are many less obvious ways to remain neutral (or close to it) even under higher Smokestack counts. Each of the below can do wonders to keep us ahead of a Smokestack with N>1 counters:
So, in practice I have found that you don't really need token producers to still come out massively ahead from Smokestack - and many of the utility creatures already here for other reasons can pull double-duty in this regard.
I must have had an old page loaded because I didn't see elfric's post when I replied - but that comment is also 100% correct and probably even better than what I wrote. Nothing more to really add, since he/she put it so well!
T2 acceleration (for T3 Meren) remains incredibly potent, and Bloom Tender / Devoted Druid (who makes his re-entrance) serve that niche. While there are of course 1-cmc mana dorks available, these offer the potential to tap for 2 and thus provide some additional reach and long-term value; Devoted Druid in particular can help to pay for T3 Meren, then immediately blow himself up to get her a quick counter. It's possible these two will be replaced by 1-cmc dorks, but that decision will be made pending some testing to see how well these curve out / conflict with other spells on T1-T2-T3. Birds of Paradise and Elves of Deep Shadow would top the list for 1-drops, and while they enable much more explosive T2's, they offer less in return as the game goes on. On the other hand, Courser of Kruphix is just too slow to be worth the slot here.
Blood Funnel is some sweet little-known tech that I've finally decided should make its entrance, as it does practically everything we want and the "drawback" is actually often a perk for us. However, only testing will prove whether it will be around to stay.
Swiftfoot Boots and Sword of Feast and Famine are strong at times, but clunky at many others, requiring setup and investment to get value out of them. This list wants to be repeatedly playing creatures and other threats, and these siphon resources without significantly hindering our opponents. On average, I see Carpet of Flowers and Blood Funnel giving back more than these offer (even if the equipments have a high potential ceiling).
With lots of removal added in recent changes, I find Damnation less necessary than ever. It can be a great answer at the right time, but at others is high-cost anti-synergy. If I find I need more boardwipe, I will likely return to something like Yahenni's Expertise.
Just wanted to say that I am a huge fan of what you've done with the primer. I've migrated my list from gromgrom's to something more like what you've got going on here.
I wanted to gauge your opinion on something though. Why not run Jitte over Basilisk Collar? I get that Basilisk collar is 1 less to cast than the Jitte, but the Jitte feels like a stronger, more versatile option. For one, if you want lifegain, Jitte provides four of it per attack. The overwhelming majority of the creatures that you are casting are going to earn you less than 4 life per attack with Basilisk Collar. In fact, there aren't any creatures in your build that go past 4 power beyond the Hulk. I feel like it's a stronger option if that is originally what you are going for. Not only that, but Jitte also provides additional options. You can use those same charge counters to pump up your weenies to close the game out faster. You can also use those counters as a more targeted form of removal, which was something several posts ago you said you wanted more of.
The only problem I am seeing is it costs 1 more than Collar just to play, which doesn't seem to me like much of a problem because it's still within your CC range. I 100% agree that after having played around with this, it needs lifegain somewhere. Between Mana Crypt, Phyrexian Arena, Ancient Tomb, etc., there is tons of damage that you are doing to yourself and if you are intending to play a longer game, you must create more life somewhere. However, Collar just seems like it's not pulling the same weight.
Meren only brings back one creature per turn, and I find this almost always needs to be a utility creature of some sort - whether to force sacrifice, discard, destroy problem permanents, etc. In other words, to maintain board advantage, there often just isn't time to spend recursion cycles on something that doesn't directly affect the other players. This was a problem with Kokusho too. The nice thing about Basilisk Collar is that it provides incremental lifegain and a combat threat without expending Meren's ability.
This is a good point regarding Kokusho, but I still think it warrants a second look. Maybe I am missing the forest for the trees here, but Kokusho provides two roles at one time A). lifegain and B). threat. With the first and most important, Kokusho can gain you anywhere from 5 to 15 life all at once, depending on how many active opponents are sitting at the table. That's more bang than anything else is going to provide in a single sitting. Lifegain does feel extremely important to this deck because between all of the hate you are going to get and the damage you are doing to yourself, you run the risk that you simply burn out. Kokusho is the most expensive, yet effective and gameplay friendly option brought up so far.
Second, Kokusho is a significant threat that is brought with the primary role listed above. Kokusho fills a role that no other creature in this build fills: it's a damage equalizer. You are right to concentrate all of your damage on one opponent at a time, but Kokusho deals it's damage to every opponent sitting at the table without having to sacrifice even an ounce of it to spread it around. Every single person there loses 1/8 of their life value with a single creature. With that being said, I think this is something that should be viewed as a secondary perk to it's primary role of being a lifegain nuke. Realistically, I don't feel that you need to sacrifice Meren's recursion to it if other creatures provide more value. Your win condition hasn't really changed. You are still beating face with everything else you have. You only use Kokusho if you need the life drain, and you are probably only going to need it once or twice, at the most.
I'm not necessarily saying that we need to run two sources of life gain at once. I'm still of the opinion that Jitte is the strongest option. However, I don't think Kokusho should be completely written off. It does a lot of neat things and unlike the utility creatures, you don't really need to keep bringing it back unless you want to. Once sacrifice is likely more than sufficient.
I think you're both totally right about Jitte, I had considered it a number of months ago, but the deck wasn't in the right place then to make use of it - now that I need a utility equipment, it fills that role even better than Basilisk Collar. Not sure how it slipped my mind this time, but it's undoubtedly the right choice here! Great recommendation.
Re: Kokusho - I'm not totally set on him one way or another; mostly just testing the list without him to see how well it runs (I try to push outside my comfort zone on things like this, since if removing him is the wrong choice, I typically know very quickly!) We gain early-game consistency by getting rid of him, so the question I've been trying to answer is whether or not the deck can stabilize effectively without him - or whether we really do need the lifegain he provides. I haven't gotten enough games in recently to have a good verdict one way or the other, but there's a perfectly reasonable chance he may return! Especially as many of the recent changes have increased the deck's ability to ramp and generate early mana - so an early Kokusho may not be as much of a problem either.
I do have one other proposal. Protean Hulk is a fantastic card. It's a wonderful beater with Tooth and Nail built in. However, I think that there might be another creature better suited to the stax agenda.
Protean Hulk is run in the combo build not because he can grab weenie utility creatures, but because he can finish the game with infinite combos. Since we aren't running them, I don't think we get the value that they do.
Not only that, but there are plenty of tutors for creature already. Between Grim Flayer, Foster, Evolutionary Leap, etc., I don't think there is any problem getting needed creatures. Granted these tutors don't put those creatures into play, but they will end up in play regardless.
I might sound crazy here, but I think Sheoldred, the Whispering One is a better option for being this decks fatty. The reality if the Stax heavy build is that our strength and weakness is Meren. With her, we stay marginally ahead of the Stax. Without her, we consume our own board presence and lose the game.
This was why you emphasized Strionic Resonator to duplicate her ability, and shroud/hexproof to protect her. Sheoldred is effectively another copy of Meren with unlockable evasion (Urborg in play) that furthers the Stax agenda with her pseudo The Abyss ability built in.
To me, doubling down on Stax advantage is what this deck is trying to do rather than hold onto combo elements from the other decks.
It also frees up the 4CC slot held by Magus of the Abyss since Sheoldred's ability is redundant.
To me, the "limiting reagent" here is our ability to stay ahead of the existing Stax effects. Meren, Eternal Witness, and Reanimate are the only things recurring creatures. I feel that players eventually catch onto this.
I suspect that the decision between Protean Hulk and Sheoldred depends highly on what kind of meta you are playing in - Sheoldred shines in creature-heavy metas, and Hulk in more combo-oriented metas.
For example, my playgroup is quite creature-light and combo-heavy, so finding the right lockdown pieces at the right time can make a huge difference in how successful we are at stopping them. Since Hulk can find any two tools to solve whatever problem we currently have - be it card advantage, recursion, removal, lockdown, etc. - we have a wide and versatile toolbox to work with, though he does not provide a powerful recursion engine. In other words, "Silver Bullets" are very important and finding them goes a long way towards stopping opponents' combos - so for this niche, he's a great choice. (We do have lots of other tutors - but since Hulk cheats them into play, it's often a much faster route than the others.)
On the other hand, if your opponents are creature-heavy and beating them through sheer value and recursion will do the trick, then Sheoldred probably has a place. However, she loses a bit of her potential if either (a) you haven't already come across the tools you need, or (b) your opponents' strategies don't hinge as much on creatures.
I will have to think a bit more about Sheoldred though - specifically, how much our recursion gets disrupted and whether we could use a second source like this!
To clarify my position a bit because I was a little distracted when I wrote it up, Sheoldred is a suggestion exclusively because it shores up a weakness in the basic design of the deck. I am of the opinion that weaknesses should be the very first thing addressed before going into other meta dependent things, such as the toolbox.
My experience with the build is that the deck is sacrifice heavy. That is fine, so long as we can profit from it more than our opponents. The issue that you run into is that wise opponents key in on identifying Meren as being the most concrete way you can keep paying the taxes. We can not care about our own permanent as much as we like, but not having Meren, for any extended period of time, in play assures our board presence is consumed by our effects.
Furthermore, it doesn't take long until sacrifice redundancy starts to strain resources. For example, try having The Abyss in play with a Contamination in hand that you need to buy you a few turns. Meren can only provide you with one immunity from the upkeep tax per turn. Although we profit from our sacrifices and make sure it hurts our opponents more than us, it only takes a focus on Meren to bring us into the same world of hurt.
Why Strionic Resonator didn't work out makes sense. Although it's versatile, it was there to keep us ahead of the tax effects by combining with Meren. However, it's almost a dead card until Meren is out and it had might as well be dead when she is gone. Sheoldred helps us try to stay ahead of our own taxes.
In addition, Sheoldred effectively provides a tax that only our opponents must pay. That's not the primary reason to run it though. The primary reason to even look its direction is for the recursion effect. Everything else: Swampwalk, a 6/6 body, a pseudo-Abyss ability, that is all secondary.
The other advantage it provides that not even Strionic could is that it's ability activates during the upkeep and not the end phase. I have had situations come up where multiple opponents played the political game and squeezed through options that I would like to use Caustic Caterpillar or Reclamation Sage twice for. You can do that here, not to mention the synergy that can come from equipping the Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots to give something you just brought back haste. That's part of the reason why Greaves and Boots take time to set-up with Meren, the haste is largely irrelevant with anything she brings back.
I am not necessarily saying that Hulk is a poor choice. I do think the combo players get more value out of it than any of us coul, but I can definitely see the value in getting any option up to 6CC into play for free. However, I am saying that I feel another source of recursion is mandatory, especially when the engine behind our success gets more expensive every time she ends up in the Command Zone.
EDIT: I feel that I should note that my experiences with Protean Hulk may be meta-related. I have the same combo dominance you do, but my area seems to love Storm combo. As such, there really aren't any toolbox creatures that would slam them on their brakes in this list. There is a good possibility that this is why I dislike the Hulk.
To clarify my position a bit because I was a little distracted when I wrote it up, Sheoldred is a suggestion exclusively because it shores up a weakness in the basic design of the deck. I am of the opinion that weaknesses should be the very first thing addressed before going into other meta dependent things, such as the toolbox.
My experience with the build is that the deck is sacrifice heavy. That is fine, so long as we can profit from it more than our opponents. The issue that you run into is that wise opponents key in on identifying Meren as being the most concrete way you can keep paying the taxes. We can not care about our own permanent as much as we like, but not having Meren, for any extended period of time, in play assures our board presence is consumed by our effects.
Furthermore, it doesn't take long until sacrifice redundancy starts to strain resources. For example, try having The Abyss in play with a Contamination in hand that you need to buy you a few turns. Meren can only provide you with one immunity from the upkeep tax per turn. Although we profit from our sacrifices and make sure it hurts our opponents more than us, it only takes a focus on Meren to bring us into the same world of hurt.
Why Strionic Resonator didn't work out makes sense. Although it's versatile, it was there to keep us ahead of the tax effects by combining with Meren. However, it's almost a dead card until Meren is out and it had might as well be dead when she is gone. Sheoldred helps us try to stay ahead of our own taxes.
In addition, Sheoldred effectively provides a tax that only our opponents must pay. That's not the primary reason to run it though. The primary reason to even look its direction is for the recursion effect. Everything else: Swampwalk, a 6/6 body, a pseudo-Abyss ability, that is all secondary.
The other advantage it provides that not even Strionic could is that it's ability activates during the upkeep and not the end phase. I have had situations come up where multiple opponents played the political game and squeezed through options that I would like to use Caustic Caterpillar or Reclamation Sage twice for. You can do that here, not to mention the synergy that can come from equipping the Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots to give something you just brought back haste. That's part of the reason why Greaves and Boots take time to set-up with Meren, the haste is largely irrelevant with anything she brings back.
I am not necessarily saying that Hulk is a poor choice. I do think the combo players get more value out of it than any of us coul, but I can definitely see the value in getting any option up to 6CC into play for free. However, I am saying that I feel another source of recursion is mandatory, especially when the engine behind our success gets more expensive every time she ends up in the Command Zone.
EDIT: I feel that I should note that my experiences with Protean Hulk may be meta-related. I have the same combo dominance you do, but my area seems to love Storm combo. As such, there really aren't any toolbox creatures that would slam them on their brakes in this list. There is a good possibility that this is why I dislike the Hulk.
I guess I'll clarify my opinion a bit with a thought experiment - assuming you cast Hulk (with no Meren on the field), you've got him to sacrifice to The Abyss, plus two other creatures which he finds. So, the rest of your board position remains unaffected for three turns. If Hulk stays dead after that, then Sheoldred continues to provide additional value; but for the first three turns, she does not provide any more support than Hulk does (at least as far as protecting your board). In the long run Sheoldred will provide more sacrifice fodder - but this does is not realized until your fourth turn and onwards, AND you don't have the benefit of 2x free ETB tutors stapled onto her. This is all assuming no Meren in play. Also, he finds the other two creatures when he dies, regardless, so the payout is more or less guaranteed - whereas if someone has fast removal for Sheoldred, you ultimately haven't netted anything off her.
If you DO have Meren out, Hulk is far stronger than Sheoldred (as far as sustainability is concerned) since he provides 3x the sacrifice fodder (himself + 2 creatures) each turn compared to the single recursion of Sheoldred. He can find more ramp if needed to re-cast Meren if she does eat removal (so he helps solve that problem), while also being able to pull in Creakwood Liege to further protect yourself from The Abyss and other symmetric effects if necessary. So while he technically isn't a "recursion" engine, the purpose of our recursion is largely to maintain fuel for our sacrifice effects, and in that regard I actually think he is much better than Sheoldred.
in general i think both are not the place you want to be.
after this i looked at the decklist with these subgroups in mind and found these cards:
Creakwood Liege - very expensive set card
Glissa, the Traitor - recursion maybe !? but at the price of durdling too much
Grim Flayer - maybe acts like a bad mirri's guile but doesnt do anything else
Protean Hulk - we will get to this later
Rishkar, Peema Renegade - probably sub par ramp
Lightning Greaves - does it apply to any of those types? - no
Evolutionary Leap - set card to build merencounters at the cost of loads of mana
Sensei's Divining Top - another mana consuming do nothing
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cards not included: dark tutelage - once the investment is payed its free Ophiomancer - gives way more tokens to sac to stuff like attrition and is cheaper than the liege Slum Reaper - if you play meren over other stax lists you probably are about keeping the board creatureclean. this effect can not be run enough imo bitterblossom - just a set card but there is no cheaper alternative if the symetries about sacrificing are a too steep cost. pox the only card to balance the table a litte bit if BEHIND (deathcloud is the absolute opposite as it is usefull only if you are ahead already)
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as BG lacks any mass landdestruction it is hard to get the equilibrium kinda state to lock opponents out.
so opponents that can develop a manabase fast enough can not be locked out as good with the discard enchantments as if they had no mana.
so the general way to compensate is to keep up with ramping and maybe outrun them with using all that mana for value where they maybe can not use it all.
that path is way more tempo oriented in the form of ongoing ramp instead of fast locking to the ground.(possible later if there is mass LD to reset any progress back to an equilibrium)
now meren is a way to outtempo others but if you can grind the game reliably to a state with experience counters to "irrelevant how much because absurdly high maximum" it is more effective to have a "bigger" creature. something that turns the tides and is worth the mana cheat turn for turn.
hulk and koko can be that kind of card, but in the end none of them is a bump, set or spike.
i guess to find the right compromise is the key here as finishers arent wanted on the one side but sometimes needed on the other side.
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another thing is the ramp package.
there could be wild growth, llanowar elves or dark ritual.
the faster the deck ramps the more unlikely it is opponents get ahead.
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got disrupted while writing this so for now i will just press post reply.
To address the cards in order:
Creakwood Liege - Not sold on him, but he has a few advantages that, in my mind, justify his cost over the alternatives. First, he is a creature so is much more tutorable (and recur-able) than Bitterblossom and the like. While we're discussing Bitterblossom - it's worth mentioning that we're already running a little thin on extra life with all our Ancient Tomb and draw effects, so this can be a major thorn-in-the-side in that regard. He creates a token every turn regardless, which Ophiomancer does not do (in addition to that token being stronger). Finally, he is a finisher-in-disguise as the boosts he gives can cut your win-clock in half. I don't think he's necessarily a done-deal here, but I haven't found something that covers the bases as well as he does for cheaper.
Glissa, the Traitor - I have not seen enough games with her to make a decision one way or the other. Being that we aren't in Blue, we only have access to so many cards at once - which means if our opponents deal with our lock pieces effectively, our options are either (a) dig aggressively to find more, or (b) find a way to get them back. I think we've already exhausted most of the viable competitive options for digging, and if your playgroup has caught on and started running a bunch of Nature's Claim effects, you sort of need something like this.
Grim Flayer - He is far, far better than Mirri's Guile. With Mirri's Guile you're stuck with whatever cards happen to be on top of your library and have no way of getting past them. Grim Flayer lets you dig quickly through your library (you can stack your topdeck AND dump the rest straight into your graveyard), AND get key creatures straight into your graveyard to be cheated into play with Meren. He quickly becomes a threatening 4/4, and with Creakwood Liege in play, a 6/6, so he is a finisher as well. He does almost everything this deck wants at only 2 cmc.
Lightning Greaves - I recently removed Swiftfoot Boots, but I'm not sure yet about the greaves. It's just too good at protecting Meren from almost all of the main threats that can get to her, and the 0 equip cost means it can protect her immediately. The alternative here would be Sylvan Safekeeper, but I have not tested that yet.
Sensei's Divining Top - It pains me to hear your assessment of this card because it's one of the very best card-quality tools in non-blue, even for stax. Not only can we stack our topdeck, but also get instant access to topdeck-tutored cards (from Vampiric Tutor, Worldly Tutor, etc) in addition to abusing fetchlands and other shuffle effects to reset our coming draws when our top-3 aren't giving us the gas we need.
Evolutionary Leap - The fact it gives Meren counters is a nice bonus, but that's not why it's here. While it is not functionally the same as Survival of the Fittest, they largely serve the same purpose in our deck (since we don't run crazy chain combos).
Rishkar, Peema Renegade - I would prefer something at 2 cmc, but Rishkar has been shining for me so far. He is basically a Worn Powerstone that lets you tap immediately and for colors. Right now there is nothing else that does that; all of the other ramp options I've seen are either very underwhelming after T1-3, or don't have the tempo and immediate impact that he does.
Dark Ritual and 1-CMC dorks - Combo can afford to play this, because they are happy to give up card advantage to out-tempo their opponents and simply win. When you play Dark Ritual, you are knowingly two-for-one'ing yourself in hopes that you will simply win before the card disadvantage comes back to bite you... On the other hand, we need to maintain pressure continuously until the time we win and can't really afford to give up card slots for one-time effects like this. I understand that it can enable explosive T1-T2-T3 plays, but that is not when this deck wins, and we already do just fine surviving those turns and beginning to lock the board down anyway. The crucial turns come in T4-T8, when our opponents are blowing through their own Dark Rituals to answer our board position (AKA trading their cards inefficiently for ours). If we draw a T7 Dark Ritual (or 1-cmc dork), it's basically useless - while a T7 Rishkar creates lasting value, more sacrifice fodder, more threats, etc. Granted, we still want to keep our curve very low and fast - but at some point there are seriously diminishing returns and only Combo can really afford to play through that.
EDIT: I recently (yesterday) modified the OP to include more discussion on finding the right sweet-spot for stax effects, sustaining them, and finding the right speed for the deck. You might glance at that as well.
FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List
Hi all, the eventual goal of this thread is to achieve Primer status - you may have seen my Niv-Mizzet the Firemind Primer here, and I hope to do something similar in this (albeit much darker) vein.
If you haven't seen Gromgrom's Primer, check it out over here. While his list focuses heavily on the combo, my list is all-in on stax; I seek to completely lock the game down as quickly and consistently as possible, while remaining resilient to removal from opponents. There are still wincons, but I've opted to eliminate combo in the name of really nailing the stax element. Therefore, Gromgrom's and my lists play quite differently, and I hope two Primers may ultimately coexist!
I have been piloting (and keeping quiet) about this list for roughly a year now (see changelog below) and at this point, I am finally pleased with it enough to post here. Looking forward to your feedback - though note, this list will be extremely unpopular at casual tables! I have spared no expense in its construction, as you will undoubtedly see.
You can expect regular updates from me in the coming weeks and months as I expand on this thread and ultimately flesh it out into a Primer-like state. Please let me know what you'd like to see!
Background
The objectives of this build are simple:
The Decklist
Quick Stats:
Spells < 4 CMC: 61
Spells = 4 CMC: 7
Spells > 4 CMC: 1
Spells w/ No Color Req: 14
G Costs: 24
GG Costs: 3
B Costs: 21
BB Costs: 8
BBB Costs: 2
(B/G)(B/G)(B/G) Costs: 1
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Creatures
1 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Boreal Druid
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Creakwood Liege
1 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Manglehorn
1 Merciless Executioner
1 Mindslicer
1 Minister of Pain
1 Ophiomancer
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Shriekmaw
1 Viridian Zealot
Instants
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Beast Within
1 Crop Rotation
1 Dismember
1 Entomb
1 Nature's Claim
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Imperial Seal
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reanimate
1 Smallpox
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Yahenni's Expertise
Enchantments
1 Blood Funnel
1 Bottomless Pit
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Contamination
1 Evolutionary Leap
1 Grave Pact
1 Living Plane
1 Necropotence
1 Nether Void
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
Artifacts
1 Birthing Pod
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Chrome Mox
1 Damping Matrix
1 Mana Crypt
1 Null Rod
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Tangle Wire
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Winter Orb
1 Liliana of the Veil
Nonbasic Lands
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 High Market
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tainted Wood
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Woodland Cemetery
Basic Lands
5 Forest
4 Swamp
Cards Under General Consideration:
Meta-Tech to Consider:
Colors: Meren's colors of Green & Black provide access to:
Converted Mana Cost: At 4 CMC, Meren sits in a great sweetspot for early plays - dropping acceleration on Turn 1 or Turn 2 enables a Turn 3 Meren. While likely not quick enough to dodge the first round of removal, this gives us many options on our timing for casting her (waiting for removal to be used on someone else, for example). If she were much cheaper, her effect would need to be balanced down; more expensive, and she wouldn't be versatile enough.
Power/Toughness (P/T): At 3/4, the most important aspect of Meren's P/T is that she is a strong blocker. Competitive decks typically aren't winning through creature damage, but smaller creatures may swing anyway (to activate abilities, or get in small amounts of damage when possible). Stax plays the attrition game, so having a Commander that can reliably block and kill most other creatures that will see play is very important to our staying power... if she were 2/2, the whole board could simply attack and kill us. Additionally, she is strong enough to provide lethal Commander damage to one or more players - once the board clears, 3 power is actually not bad (especially when paired with another 2-3 creatures).
Experience Counters: Crucial because we don't lose them if Meren dies. Once she hits 3-4 counters, the only way to stop her activating each and every turn is to keep killing her - which much of the rest of the deck is designed to prevent.
Triggered Ability: Let's break this down a bit more:
Win Conditions
There is one major "lock" combo included in this decklist which typically results in a win shortly thereafter: Living Plane + Minister of Pain. Together, this combination destroys all of your opponents' lands, and the effect is repeatable through Meren's recursion. However, unlike the Necrotic Ooze and Mike + Trike combos, the Living Plane + Minister of Pain pieces are still extremely useful on their own, which was a key factor in my including this combo over the alternatives:
The actual killing blow is dealt through combat damage, which is made much faster through Umezawa's Jitte, Creakwood Liege, and raw creature swarm (you won't one-shot people, but assembling 15+ attack power is quite easy and makes games swift). Once Living Plane + Minister of Pain has landed, you accumulate such an advantage that victory typically arrives very shortly thereafter.
Powerful Stax in Practice: The Reality
Before we dive into this list in detail, I want to make a few quick comments about constructing an effective stax list. I feel that a lot of players coming to Stax for the first time tend to romanticize the archetype, or misunderstand its purpose. So, a quick comment in general:
AKA the goal is not:
These are all certainly powerful effects, and I'm not saying you won't achieve this from time to time with the list above; but these are extreme examples and shooting for them every game means you will sacrifice efficiency, speed, resilience, and ultimately, win-rate. The truth is, a Smokestack often only gets 1-2 counters - but combined with a huge density of other threats (discard, tap, tax), this is all you need to win the game. "Win-more" is a very real concept and something I see all the time - and while the games you do win tend to be bigger stomps, your win rate is usually much lower.
The point of stax is not to shut out our opponents entirely. Magic has been carefully designed - with good reason - such that achieving this tends to be extremely difficult and inconsistent. Rather, we want to utilize spells which efficiently exploit our opponents weaknesses, give us gamestate advantage, and put us in a winning position before they are able to stabilize.
"Breaking parity" simply means you are coming out ahead of your opponents. It does not mean you are unaffected by your stax elements. It simply means that you play better under your imposed oppressive conditions.
Thus, just because you choose to run Smokestack doesn't mean you need token generators to counteract it. Consider that, (a) if there are other recursion engines built in, and (b) you inherently play a much higher density of permanents than your opponents, we will naturally come out ahead (often far ahead) of our opponents in the end - even if it means sacrificing a few permanents along the way. Yes, in a vacuum token generators reduce your losses to a Smokestack - but they do very little on their own! This tradeoff in deck consistency / reliability is simply not worth it to save a few low-value permanents - especially when you're nabbing key permanents off your opponents!
(Note: It's not bad for our spells to help us break stax parity. However, it's bad if that's largely all a card does, because that means it has little or no utility otherwise.)
High-Level Goals & Objectives
This stax build is intended to be a firm control list, but unlike Blue permission we rely on permanents to starve our opponents and keep our engines running. Speed and consistency are a major concern if we are to establish a board presence before our opponents get off the ground - but the threats we drop must also be significant enough that our opponents cannot afford to simply ignore them. The pace of the game is largely dictated by the first 10 cards you see - your opening hand & first three turns. Personally this is a good rule of thumb regardless, but it applies even moreso with Meren. If you can't begin to lock out your opponents with the first 10, you're too far behind for it to matter. Therefore, we only have 10 random cards (11 with Meren) with which to achieve everything we need.
Obviously, a low curve and quality ramp are important factors in applying pressure to our opponents straight from the get-go. Take note that there are a number of one-drop mana dorks in this list - although they don't synergize with Meren's recursion ability as land-fetching creatures (for example, Viridian Emissary), their speed is simply unmatched and they are the golden ticket to staying ahead of your opponents. Sidenote: Consider that Viridian Emissary costs more than a mana dork, is far slower, and does not have immediate payoff; in exchange you get greater potential return-on-investment if you can recur him multiple times.... in reality, this rarely happens. A Viridian Emissary usually fetches one land and is never seen again - so a mana dork is simply the faster and more efficient choice.
When building your deck, note that over-ramping can be a problem, as it means you'll run out of steam to actually control the game. Of the first 10 cards, ~3 will be lands - meaning we have ~7 slots to play with for ramp and disruption/stax. 1-2 high-quality ramp pieces leaves 5-6 slots of threats. However, if we run too many ramp sources and draw 3-4 ramp cards in the first 10 (dorks + rocks), our threat density is literally cut in half!
The whole point of stax is to limit your opponents resources and eliminate their cards - whether in-hand or on the battlefield. I think everyone is familiar with the archetypal stax cards (Smokestack, etc), but in a value-dense, recursion-centric stax list, we can afford to build around a more subtle "stax" theme:
In other words, simply having a massive density of threats and stax elements will achieve your goals one way or the other - either the stax elements will stick, OR your opponents will be forced to waste their time dealing with them. The key is simply to ensure that you can stay ahead of their removal. If you do, you win! Our many value and recursion engines let us come out on top of this tradeoff, and mean that most players simply won't be able to maintain pace, even if they are able to find answers to some of our threats.
When thinking about building a competitive deck, I recommend "forgetting" the concept of "late-game cards." Every card must be a powerful early-game card - dominance in the late game is achieved by utilizing powerful interactions between your strong early-game cards. This is a good ideal to strive for, because it will make your early game not only extremely potent, but also ridiculously consistent/reliable. Each selection on this list follows this rule.
When playing, the first objective is to slow the game down. Against Combo, this may mean a Sphere of Resistance or Null Rod; against creatures, this may mean Grave Pact, Minister of Pain, or Fleshbag Marauder. Whether you play Meren before or after your stax elements will vary depending on the situation you're in and the decks you're facing - if you're not afraid of removal, play her as quickly as possible as her engine is the core strength of the list. However, if your opponents are heavy on removal and counterspells it is important not to get overzealous. Casting her straight into removal results in a dead (and expensive) commander in a stax list, and your tempo grinds to a halt. Instead, force out removal & counters with other threats from the library. The threat density of this list is massive, and the creatures can ultimately be recovered later with Meren. Also, keep in mind that our list is constructed from the ground-up to play well from underneath stax effects - meaning even if Meren isn't on the battlefield, we are typically coming out ahead of our opponents.
The key strengths of this list are the sheer volume of threats it plays, its resilience to disruption, and its ability to maintain card advantage engines (continuously playing threats without running out of steam). Many of the deck's weaknesses are solved by simply playing through disruption: Meren herself has no evasion to dodge counterspells or removal, but rather than devoting undue slots to solving this issue, you simply cast a variety of other threats. Your opponents have two options: hold removal for Meren and allow you to scramble far ahead of them, or burn their removal on other permanents and provide an opening for Meren to stick on the battlefield. Either way we are happy and always moving towards establishing a dominant board position.
Ramp is an important aspect of the early/mid game. Because we are playing Stax, nonland ramp (mana dorks) are riskier vs. board wipes and do not accumulate additional advantage with repeated recursion cycles. However, the tempo they provide in return is MORE than worth it - mana dorks launch this deck out of the gates and enable explosive, powerful early-game moves. Additionally, they pair far better with Winter Orb.
The stax elements in the list are carefully chosen for their viability in a multiplayer environment. Low-CMC is highly preferred and key phrases here are, "each turn" and "each opponent." The exact stax package (and space it occupies) will vary from list to list, as the problems you'll need to answer may vary widely; however, a few overarching elements will almost universally appear:
Outside of ramp and stax, almost every other card in the list is a card draw or card advantage engine. The decision to play stax is not one to be made lightly, and the pilot should be aware that in doing so, the entire table will likely turn its forces against you. Therefore, it is crucial that you have the card advantage to break stax parity, overcome your opponents' disruption/removal, and progress steadily and swiftly to victory. In short: Locking the game is necessary but not sufficient; you must generate enough steam to close out the game quickly and before your opponents manage to throw off their shackles.
How to Play the Deck
Stax Engines & Effects: A Breakdown
Let's get one thing out of the way right off the bat:
With that in mind, let's jump right into our gameplan:
Keep this list in mind, as each Stax piece serves to fulfill one (or more) of these objectives. Additionally, know that you will need to accomplish all three of the above if you want to be competitive; achieving just one or two leaves opportunity for our opponents to run away with the game!
Creature Package
When selecting creatures for inclusion it is important to weigh both the creature's converted mana cost and the cost of any activated abilities attached to it. For example: Sylvok Replica and Viridian Zealot both cost a total of 4 CMC to cast and activate, but there are different tradeoffs between the two. The Zealot can be played or activated with only 2 mana up, while Replica requires 3 to be hard-cast. On the other hand, the Replica's color requirements are much less restrictive, and its ability ultimately costs less mana after repeated looping with Meren. There is not necessarily one right choice - but it is important to weigh these options when considering the other card choices in the list, as well as your style as a player. (I have Zealot in my list over Replica for a totally different reason - he doesn't get turned off by my own Null Rod)
This list wins the game through combat damage, and it is important to get combat damage in starting in the first few turns. This is because, although Stax plays like a control list, your opponents will still have some capacity to play through and it is important to win as swiftly as possible. The most important aspect of combat damage is the following: You should identify the opponent who is the greatest threat to your gameplan and exclusively attack that person until they are eliminated from the game. Some will say that this gameplan goes against the spirit of Commander, and they'd rather spread the damage around... to them I say, stop reading! This is not the deck for you. Spreading combat damage around not only paints a target on your back to all players, but also keeps more opponents at the table longer, thus greatly increasing the likelihood that they will be able to stop you from winning. If you are not willing to devote all attacks to eliminating one person, and then the next, and so on, know that you are willingly empowering the rest of the table (something a competitive build should be expressly designed - and piloted - not to do).
Card Choices: Why Each Card Matters
Weaknesses
Graveyard Shroud: While it (thankfully) doesn't exile our graveyard, Ground Seal is still a problem for us, as Meren's reanimation ability requires you to target a creature in your graveyard... something Ground Seal prevents.
Graveyard Lock: Grafdigger's Cage, Containment Priest
Graveyard Exile: Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, and Planar Void are some prime examples.
Anti-Tap: Awakening, Seedborn Muse, etc
November 26, 2017: More One Drops
Added:
September 26, 2017: The Matrix is Real
Added:
The replacement card is a very meta-call for me, so it may not be the right choice for everyone. I play against a lot of artifact and creature-based combo, so stopping both of these combo lines is a major concern for me. It is also extremely effective against the currently-very-popular Thrasios, Triton Hero. However, this could be a very dead card in some playgroups. I could easily see Drown in Sorrow, Putrefy, Pithing Needle, Scavenging Ooze, Loaming Shaman, etc. in this slot.
September 20, 2017: Revoking Your Permissions
Added:
September 1, 2017: A Powerful New Wincon
Added:
- Living Plane
- Minister of Pain
Removed:August 31, 2017: Sharpening
Added:
- Abrupt Decay
- Beast Within
- Birds of Paradise
- Birthing Pod
- Chrome Mox
- City of Brass
- Deathrite Shaman
- Dismember
- Elves of Deep Shadow
- Elvish Mystic
- Fauna Shaman
- Fyndhorn Elves
- Llanowar Elves
- Maelstrom Pulse
- Mana Confluence
- Nature's Claim
- Ophiomancer
- Shriekmaw
- Smallpox
- Syphon Mind
- Trinisphere
- Yahenni's Expertise
Removed:Results:
Older Changes:
June 1, 2017: Chalices and Chains
Chains of Mephistopheles specifically targets combo and blue decks. Almost all blue lists are either running a plethora of Brainstorm and Frantic Search effects, or heavily draw through their decks to win the game... many do both. Reload effects like Timetwister are also common, and these provide fuel to opponents who otherwise would be stopped by our heavy discard suite. Chains is not only a silver bullet for many combo strategies, but also the nail-in-the-coffin for our discard, preventing our opponents from ever reloading their hands. This is extremely important to recognize! Once our discard engines are running and Chains is on the field, there are very few ways for our opponents to re-stabilize.
Chalice of the Void is meant to almost always be cast for X=1. Why? At competitive tables, 1-cmc spells run rampant... whether removal (Swords to Plowshares), counterspells (Spell Pierce), tutors, etc.... Chalice protects Meren by blanking many of the most common removal spells and prevents many of the most common draw/tutor spells. While it does hit a few of our own spells, it is still highly assymmetric.
May 21, 2017: Rolling Out the Carpet
Blood Funnel is some sweet little-known tech that I've finally decided should make its entrance, as it does practically everything we want and the "drawback" is actually often a perk for us. However, only testing will prove whether it will be around to stay.
Swiftfoot Boots and Sword of Feast and Famine are strong at times, but clunky at many others, requiring setup and investment to get value out of them. This list wants to be repeatedly playing creatures and other threats, and these siphon resources without significantly hindering our opponents. On average, I see Carpet of Flowers and Blood Funnel giving back more than these offer (even if the equipments have a high potential ceiling).
With lots of removal added in recent changes, I find Damnation less necessary than ever. It can be a great answer at the right time, but at others is high-cost anti-synergy. If I find I need more boardwipe, I will likely return to something like Yahenni's Expertise.
Umezawa's Jitte is in for Basilisk Collar - while it doesn't offer deathtouch, the potential lifegain is greater, and it also offers options for spot removal. Thanks to TheDeathMessage for the recommendation.
May 9, 2017: More Toolboxing - And Even More Removal
Crop Rotation typically finds Gaea's Cradle, Bojuka Bog, or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. There are no hulk combos in this list, but he is a fantastic finisher.... a repeatable Tooth and Nail on a stick for us.
Protean Hulk needs very little introduction. Although this list avoids the typical combos (to avoid diluting the control/stax consistency), Hulk is basically an entwined Tooth and Nail in our list. Not only this - but it can be cheated into play in the early game through Reanimate, and late-game can be cycled to repeat the effect each turn. Since many of our tools and answers come stapled onto creatures, this has found a comfortable home in this list.
The potential of Aluren and Strionic Resonator are undeniable - but unfortunately they just don't quite match the tempo / pace of the rest of the deck. Specifically, our hand is typically empty of creatures by the time Aluren comes down - and Strionic Resonator is a bummer in an early hand.
Pestilence serves two purposes - it effectively wipes tokens at instant speed and on-the-cheap. It also serves as a convenient way to wipe some of our own small creatures when the situation calls for it (to trigger Grave Pact, draw cards off Grim Haruspex, etc). Bone Shredder is less-than-optimal removal, but unfortunately Wizards hasn't printed something similar since the more recent de-restriction of black kill spells (namely, modern kill spells not caring about color). Bone Shredder provides repeated targeted removal with built-in sacrifice effect, and crucially its CMC is 2 less than Shriekmaw. This means it can be fetched together with any other 3 CMC creature off Protean Hulk.
Land changes are here to increase our count of basic lands - one gaping hole in this deck is a weakness to a very early (i.e.
T2) Blood Moon, as a friend kindly showed The four lands above aren't often utilized for their abilities, so typically just tap for 1... in many ways, simply not as good as basics. Removing Wasteland and Strip Mine may sound crazy, but with so many other ways to lock the game down, it's difficult to justify one-for-one'ing yourself to destroy one land and put yourself behind the others at the table (there are enough ways to deal with issues already).
I like the idea of Kokusho, but every time I wanted to fetch him, the game already felt won - the payoff is large, but early-game he doesn't offer much. By comparison, Basilisk Collar offers excellent incremental value, extends the combat reach of small creatures, and gains back life lost to Phyrexian Arena and similar effects.
April 15, 2017: Amonkhet Update
April 13, 2017: Housecleaning
April 11, 2017:
Attrition is in for now, as it provides repeatable targeted removal for lists running a higher creature count (for which forced sacrifice doesn't always hit the prime targets). I feel the list is slightly light on creature removal, though with as many tutors as are in the list, adding much more may overdo it. But, the next potential additions would be Shriekmaw (which is much more tutorable than Attrition) and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale... both have been in the list before and removed for one reason or another. Still thinking of what would be cut for these.
March 30, 2017:
March 17, 2017:
December 18, 2016:
December 12, 2016:
December 6, 2016:
November 9, 2016:
October 23, 2016:
July 30, 2016:
July 25, 2016:
June 12, 2016:
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Do you feel some fatties would make the cut for reanimation purposes, due to - on paper - Meren getting counters easily? Or is it to cute? You would have to cut Bob, for sure...
That said, open to suggestions! Any particular ideas you have in mind?
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Have you considered adding The Tabernacle at Pendrell's Vale? It seems to fit the taxing/sacrificing creatures theme of the deck.
Right now things still feel slightly light on creature removal, though the recent swap-in of Attrition should help with that. Otherwise, Tabernacle & Shriekmaw are the top contenders for (re)addition, just trying to find the right slot for one or both.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
To discuss some of the cards you mentioned:
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
+1 Manglehorn
+1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (would like to fit Crop Rotation and/or Sylvan Scrying in to make this easier to find)
-1 Matter Reshaper (not bad, and good synergy, just too slow)
-1 Swamp (pushing the lower limits of the curve to see if we are still OK)
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Yahenni's Expertise is very spicy vs. creature-swarm metas... a little on the higher curve but something that's been on my watchlist for some time now and not beyond the realm of reason. It's not something I've personally tested, but I would be very interested to hear people's thoughts / experiences with this if you've got any!
A card I really wish we had a black version of for this exact scenario - Æther Flash... alas, the best we get is Night of Souls' Betrayal which is just too little bang for the buck...
I'm already running Arena, so no worries there. My immediate thoughts on Graveborn Muse:
What has Muse been competing with for slots in your list? Any more insight as to how it's run for you over some of the alternatives?
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
+1 Crop Rotation
+1 Manglehorn
+1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
-1 Damping Matrix
-1 Matter Reshaper
-1 Swamp
The other two cards I'm really aiming to squeeze in are Imperial Seal and Trinisphere - just not sure where they would go, as there is very little chaff left to cut. Would love to hear people's thoughts!
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Modern.
GBW Junk
GBR Jund
UG Infect
It's possible we could replace Kokusho entirely and build around some variant of Hulk combo as a wincon, but I find this to be underwhelming unless you're willing to really go the distance (AKA devote multiple slots to combo off immediately). At that point we begin diluting the focus of the deck, and you are probably better off with a ground-up combo/control build like Gromgrom's.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
+1 Crop Rotation
+1 Protean Hulk
-1 Damping Matrix
-1 Oracle of Mul Daya
My current thinking: Damping Matrix is not always that reliable (against many decks it does nothing). Oracle of Mul Daya is undeniably strong, but she's one of the few cards at higher CMC which doesn't guarantee some immediate return-on-investment. Not only this, but because she's towards the top of the curve anyway, the added ramp is not necessarily that helpful at that point - since we've already more or less curved out. In that regard, the 2- or 3-drop creatures serve our ramp needs better.
Crop Rotation typically finds Gaea's Cradle or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. There are no hulk combos in this list, but he is a fantastic finisher.... a repeatable Tooth and Nail on a stick for us.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
As for Crop Rotation, you will love the card. It gives you so much utility. Intant gy hate with Bojuka Bogor extra mana with Gaea's Cradle.
Modern.
GBW Junk
GBR Jund
UG Infect
Next changes:
+1 Bone Shredder
+2 Forest
+1 Pestilence
+2 Swamp
-1 Aluren
-1 Rishadan Port
-1 Strionic Resonator
-1 Strip Mine
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-1 Wasteland
The potential of Aluren and Strionic Resonator are undeniable - but unfortunately they just don't quite match the tempo / pace of the rest of the deck. Specifically, our hand is typically empty of creatures by the time Aluren comes down - and Strionic Resonator is a bummer in an early hand.
Pestilence serves two purposes - it effectively wipes tokens at instant speed and on-the-cheap. It also serves as a convenient way to wipe some of our own small creatures when the situation calls for it (to trigger Grave Pact, draw cards off Grim Haruspex, etc). Bone Shredder is less-than-optimal removal, but unfortunately Wizards hasn't printed something similar since the more recent de-restriction of black kill spells (namely, modern kill spells not caring about color). Bone Shredder provides repeated targeted removal with built-in sacrifice effect, and crucially its CMC is 2 less than Shriekmaw. This means it can be fetched together with any other 3 CMC creature off Protean Hulk.
Land changes are here to increase our count of basic lands - one gaping hole in this deck is a weakness to a very early (i.e.
T2) Blood Moon, as a friend kindly showed The four lands above aren't often utilized for their abilities, so typically just tap for 1... in many ways, simply not as good as basics. Removing Wasteland and Strip Mine may sound crazy, but with so many other ways to lock the game down, it's difficult to justify one-for-one'ing yourself to destroy one land and put yourself behind the others at the table (there are enough ways to deal with issues already).
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
+1 Basilisk Collar
-1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
I like the idea of Kokusho, but every time I wanted to fetch him, the game already felt won - the payoff is large, but early-game he doesn't offer much. By comparison, Basilisk Collar offers excellent incremental value, extends the combat reach of small creatures, and gains back life lost to Phyrexian Arena and similar effects. Unfortunately with so many pain effects, it does feel like we need a tool of some sort to gain life, and there aren't that many others available to us. Of the options available, the Collar currently seems to be the most bang-for-the-buck.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Modern.
GBW Junk
GBR Jund
UG Infect
I have been on and off the fence about Disciple of Bolas for a while now, and despite the massive upsides I've always had a few reservations about adding it:
Let me preface this by saying - I am still not 100% sold on Smokestack, simply because it's so slow. It's power is undeniable, but its mana cost relatively high and trigger timing gives opponents plenty of time to respond. I keep considering whether I should cut it, but then I sit down and play the card again am reminded that there is simply nothing else (that's legal, at least) that locks how it locks, and closes games how it does. It's almost surely here to stay. That said, I think there are a few points worth mentioning:
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
+1 Blood Funnel
+1 Bloom Tender
+1 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Devoted Druid
-1 Courser of Kruphix
-1 Damnation
-1 Swiftfoot Boots
-1 Sword of Feast and Famine
T2 acceleration (for T3 Meren) remains incredibly potent, and Bloom Tender / Devoted Druid (who makes his re-entrance) serve that niche. While there are of course 1-cmc mana dorks available, these offer the potential to tap for 2 and thus provide some additional reach and long-term value; Devoted Druid in particular can help to pay for T3 Meren, then immediately blow himself up to get her a quick counter. It's possible these two will be replaced by 1-cmc dorks, but that decision will be made pending some testing to see how well these curve out / conflict with other spells on T1-T2-T3. Birds of Paradise and Elves of Deep Shadow would top the list for 1-drops, and while they enable much more explosive T2's, they offer less in return as the game goes on. On the other hand, Courser of Kruphix is just too slow to be worth the slot here.
Blood Funnel is some sweet little-known tech that I've finally decided should make its entrance, as it does practically everything we want and the "drawback" is actually often a perk for us. However, only testing will prove whether it will be around to stay.
Swiftfoot Boots and Sword of Feast and Famine are strong at times, but clunky at many others, requiring setup and investment to get value out of them. This list wants to be repeatedly playing creatures and other threats, and these siphon resources without significantly hindering our opponents. On average, I see Carpet of Flowers and Blood Funnel giving back more than these offer (even if the equipments have a high potential ceiling).
With lots of removal added in recent changes, I find Damnation less necessary than ever. It can be a great answer at the right time, but at others is high-cost anti-synergy. If I find I need more boardwipe, I will likely return to something like Yahenni's Expertise.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Just wanted to say that I am a huge fan of what you've done with the primer. I've migrated my list from gromgrom's to something more like what you've got going on here.
I wanted to gauge your opinion on something though. Why not run Jitte over Basilisk Collar? I get that Basilisk collar is 1 less to cast than the Jitte, but the Jitte feels like a stronger, more versatile option. For one, if you want lifegain, Jitte provides four of it per attack. The overwhelming majority of the creatures that you are casting are going to earn you less than 4 life per attack with Basilisk Collar. In fact, there aren't any creatures in your build that go past 4 power beyond the Hulk. I feel like it's a stronger option if that is originally what you are going for. Not only that, but Jitte also provides additional options. You can use those same charge counters to pump up your weenies to close the game out faster. You can also use those counters as a more targeted form of removal, which was something several posts ago you said you wanted more of.
The only problem I am seeing is it costs 1 more than Collar just to play, which doesn't seem to me like much of a problem because it's still within your CC range. I 100% agree that after having played around with this, it needs lifegain somewhere. Between Mana Crypt, Phyrexian Arena, Ancient Tomb, etc., there is tons of damage that you are doing to yourself and if you are intending to play a longer game, you must create more life somewhere. However, Collar just seems like it's not pulling the same weight.
Thoughts?
EDIT:
This is a good point regarding Kokusho, but I still think it warrants a second look. Maybe I am missing the forest for the trees here, but Kokusho provides two roles at one time A). lifegain and B). threat. With the first and most important, Kokusho can gain you anywhere from 5 to 15 life all at once, depending on how many active opponents are sitting at the table. That's more bang than anything else is going to provide in a single sitting. Lifegain does feel extremely important to this deck because between all of the hate you are going to get and the damage you are doing to yourself, you run the risk that you simply burn out. Kokusho is the most expensive, yet effective and gameplay friendly option brought up so far.
Second, Kokusho is a significant threat that is brought with the primary role listed above. Kokusho fills a role that no other creature in this build fills: it's a damage equalizer. You are right to concentrate all of your damage on one opponent at a time, but Kokusho deals it's damage to every opponent sitting at the table without having to sacrifice even an ounce of it to spread it around. Every single person there loses 1/8 of their life value with a single creature. With that being said, I think this is something that should be viewed as a secondary perk to it's primary role of being a lifegain nuke. Realistically, I don't feel that you need to sacrifice Meren's recursion to it if other creatures provide more value. Your win condition hasn't really changed. You are still beating face with everything else you have. You only use Kokusho if you need the life drain, and you are probably only going to need it once or twice, at the most.
I'm not necessarily saying that we need to run two sources of life gain at once. I'm still of the opinion that Jitte is the strongest option. However, I don't think Kokusho should be completely written off. It does a lot of neat things and unlike the utility creatures, you don't really need to keep bringing it back unless you want to. Once sacrifice is likely more than sufficient.
Re: Kokusho - I'm not totally set on him one way or another; mostly just testing the list without him to see how well it runs (I try to push outside my comfort zone on things like this, since if removing him is the wrong choice, I typically know very quickly!) We gain early-game consistency by getting rid of him, so the question I've been trying to answer is whether or not the deck can stabilize effectively without him - or whether we really do need the lifegain he provides. I haven't gotten enough games in recently to have a good verdict one way or the other, but there's a perfectly reasonable chance he may return! Especially as many of the recent changes have increased the deck's ability to ramp and generate early mana - so an early Kokusho may not be as much of a problem either.
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
Protean Hulk is run in the combo build not because he can grab weenie utility creatures, but because he can finish the game with infinite combos. Since we aren't running them, I don't think we get the value that they do.
Not only that, but there are plenty of tutors for creature already. Between Grim Flayer, Foster, Evolutionary Leap, etc., I don't think there is any problem getting needed creatures. Granted these tutors don't put those creatures into play, but they will end up in play regardless.
I might sound crazy here, but I think Sheoldred, the Whispering One is a better option for being this decks fatty. The reality if the Stax heavy build is that our strength and weakness is Meren. With her, we stay marginally ahead of the Stax. Without her, we consume our own board presence and lose the game.
This was why you emphasized Strionic Resonator to duplicate her ability, and shroud/hexproof to protect her. Sheoldred is effectively another copy of Meren with unlockable evasion (Urborg in play) that furthers the Stax agenda with her pseudo The Abyss ability built in.
To me, doubling down on Stax advantage is what this deck is trying to do rather than hold onto combo elements from the other decks.
It also frees up the 4CC slot held by Magus of the Abyss since Sheoldred's ability is redundant.
To me, the "limiting reagent" here is our ability to stay ahead of the existing Stax effects. Meren, Eternal Witness, and Reanimate are the only things recurring creatures. I feel that players eventually catch onto this.
For example, my playgroup is quite creature-light and combo-heavy, so finding the right lockdown pieces at the right time can make a huge difference in how successful we are at stopping them. Since Hulk can find any two tools to solve whatever problem we currently have - be it card advantage, recursion, removal, lockdown, etc. - we have a wide and versatile toolbox to work with, though he does not provide a powerful recursion engine. In other words, "Silver Bullets" are very important and finding them goes a long way towards stopping opponents' combos - so for this niche, he's a great choice. (We do have lots of other tutors - but since Hulk cheats them into play, it's often a much faster route than the others.)
On the other hand, if your opponents are creature-heavy and beating them through sheer value and recursion will do the trick, then Sheoldred probably has a place. However, she loses a bit of her potential if either (a) you haven't already come across the tools you need, or (b) your opponents' strategies don't hinge as much on creatures.
I will have to think a bit more about Sheoldred though - specifically, how much our recursion gets disrupted and whether we could use a second source like this!
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R
My experience with the build is that the deck is sacrifice heavy. That is fine, so long as we can profit from it more than our opponents. The issue that you run into is that wise opponents key in on identifying Meren as being the most concrete way you can keep paying the taxes. We can not care about our own permanent as much as we like, but not having Meren, for any extended period of time, in play assures our board presence is consumed by our effects.
Furthermore, it doesn't take long until sacrifice redundancy starts to strain resources. For example, try having The Abyss in play with a Contamination in hand that you need to buy you a few turns. Meren can only provide you with one immunity from the upkeep tax per turn. Although we profit from our sacrifices and make sure it hurts our opponents more than us, it only takes a focus on Meren to bring us into the same world of hurt.
Why Strionic Resonator didn't work out makes sense. Although it's versatile, it was there to keep us ahead of the tax effects by combining with Meren. However, it's almost a dead card until Meren is out and it had might as well be dead when she is gone. Sheoldred helps us try to stay ahead of our own taxes.
In addition, Sheoldred effectively provides a tax that only our opponents must pay. That's not the primary reason to run it though. The primary reason to even look its direction is for the recursion effect. Everything else: Swampwalk, a 6/6 body, a pseudo-Abyss ability, that is all secondary.
The other advantage it provides that not even Strionic could is that it's ability activates during the upkeep and not the end phase. I have had situations come up where multiple opponents played the political game and squeezed through options that I would like to use Caustic Caterpillar or Reclamation Sage twice for. You can do that here, not to mention the synergy that can come from equipping the Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots to give something you just brought back haste. That's part of the reason why Greaves and Boots take time to set-up with Meren, the haste is largely irrelevant with anything she brings back.
I am not necessarily saying that Hulk is a poor choice. I do think the combo players get more value out of it than any of us coul, but I can definitely see the value in getting any option up to 6CC into play for free. However, I am saying that I feel another source of recursion is mandatory, especially when the engine behind our success gets more expensive every time she ends up in the Command Zone.
EDIT: I feel that I should note that my experiences with Protean Hulk may be meta-related. I have the same combo dominance you do, but my area seems to love Storm combo. As such, there really aren't any toolbox creatures that would slam them on their brakes in this list. There is a good possibility that this is why I dislike the Hulk.
I guess I'll clarify my opinion a bit with a thought experiment - assuming you cast Hulk (with no Meren on the field), you've got him to sacrifice to The Abyss, plus two other creatures which he finds. So, the rest of your board position remains unaffected for three turns. If Hulk stays dead after that, then Sheoldred continues to provide additional value; but for the first three turns, she does not provide any more support than Hulk does (at least as far as protecting your board). In the long run Sheoldred will provide more sacrifice fodder - but this does is not realized until your fourth turn and onwards, AND you don't have the benefit of 2x free ETB tutors stapled onto her. This is all assuming no Meren in play. Also, he finds the other two creatures when he dies, regardless, so the payout is more or less guaranteed - whereas if someone has fast removal for Sheoldred, you ultimately haven't netted anything off her.
If you DO have Meren out, Hulk is far stronger than Sheoldred (as far as sustainability is concerned) since he provides 3x the sacrifice fodder (himself + 2 creatures) each turn compared to the single recursion of Sheoldred. He can find more ramp if needed to re-cast Meren if she does eat removal (so he helps solve that problem), while also being able to pull in Creakwood Liege to further protect yourself from The Abyss and other symmetric effects if necessary. So while he technically isn't a "recursion" engine, the purpose of our recursion is largely to maintain fuel for our sacrifice effects, and in that regard I actually think he is much better than Sheoldred.
To address the cards in order:
UR [PRIMER] Flash of the Firemind (Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind) RU
BG Death and Staxes: FireStorm4056's Competitive Meren Stax List GB
W Avacyn Angel of Hope W
R Akroma, Angel of (Your Opponent's) Fury R
R 99-Mountain Ashling R