Mike/Trike/Nooze - Meren Stax (EDH / Commander)

Goal: A combination of discard (symetric or otherwise) and stax pieces to stall long enough to pull a combo win together.

The deck loosely resembles honorless meren, with different lines of play and different focus.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mXvFQ7yKz0OFrsbWAv2bkQ

pao2 wrties,

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed / Walking Ballista combo
The problem with this combo line is that it's stopped by Null Rod and that Mikaeus often gets stuck in hand. Having castable >combo pieces is a very real merit in a deck that runs Earthcraft, Skullclamp, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician as it allows you to >use them for things outside of the combo if need be. There are, however, pros to this line - it gives you access to a line that >gives infinite ETBs of any creature in the deck (mentioned in the Honorbru Meren list) and is also more forgiving if you happen to >lose pieces in your yard or exile.

Necrotic Ooze combos
Overall Nooze combos are harder to assemble, less reliable, and in the case of the Phyrexian Devourer versions, our average >CMC is too low to reliably gun down the entire table.

We do have the CMC in this deck to gun down the table with Nooze. This number fluctuates a bit as cards are added or cut, but the total CMC of the deck currently not including Necrotic Ooze, Triskellion and Phyrexian Devourer is 159. Which means there is a cushion of about 39 CMC which you can have in all zones but your deck before you have to worry about not killing people, unless they have gained life. The reality is that people will likely lose life during the game because they like killing themselves for cards so this has never been a problem in the the games I have played with this deck (probably around 20 at this point).

The concept of this deck is to keep the number of combo pieces low that have no other value. The combo pieces in the deck are:
1) Walking Balista
2) Triskelion
3) Mikaeous
4) Viscera Seer
5) Necrotic Ooze
6) Phyrexian Devourer

The only -really- terrible card here is Phyrexian Devourer. This means you have two completely independent combo lines (one of which does bypass null rod. Just not the one used by Hulk) in 6 card slots (5 card slots, if you don't include Viscera Seer, which we were going to play anyway).

By comparison, this other list is running:
1) Earth Craft
2) Squirrel Nest
3) LED
4) Melira
5) Lesser Masticore
6) Disciple of the Vault
7) Viscera Seer

With the exception of Earth Craft, they are all.. not good. when you are not doing a combo - they are fairly dead cards.

The philosophy of this deck is to clean up wins when opponents stall out - and purposely push them towards stalling out. This is not to say that the deck is trying to win the longest attrition war, but rather you want to hit a mid-game timeframe with the deck, then make your move to, say, make everyone discard their hand and get back a e-witness and then witness back Buried Alive and win. Or win after Sadistic Hypnotisting away the interaction from opponent's hands or when the table is out of gas from symmetrical discard.

Because I can more easily know when an opponent may be packing countermagic by the fact that they have no cards in hand, Natural Order is something which has worked very well in conjunction with High Market and Phyrexian Tower.

Pao2 writes,

High Market
The land doesn't do enough, and colorless mana sucks.

I generally agree that colorless mana stinks.. but Phyrexian Tower and this card both fulfill the function of being a surprise sac outlet and have been the deciding factor in a substantial percentage of my games. Playing Hulk for 7 and using a land to sac it does happen sometimes. Mind Slicer can drag games out to the point where no one can win and this is a thing. Meren bringing back hulk can happen also. The effect is good enough that when you need it, you really need it.

It's worth noting that because I cut Razaketh, I have cut much of the animation from the deck. It was underperforming. I left in Reanimate, since it's the most mana efficient and this may be a consideration if I have to get it out of the graveyard to sac and I have to play it on the same turn as other spells that can guarantee that my opponents have a hard time reacting to it.

This deck above's win cons:

1. Sac Hulk through lands or some other means, Viscera Seer, Sylvan Safekeeper, BodySnatcher (sac in response to trigger to discard in order to reanimate hulk) and sac hulk to Seer, 2nd hulk fetch, mikaeous, walking balista
2. Necrotic Ooze Phyrexian Devourer and (Walking Balista or Trike) in Grave. 4 XP allows reanimation of Nooze without
3. Mike + Walking Balista / Trike
4. Pattern or Natural Order for Protean Hulk. Sac Hulk and start Hulk Wincon.

Other Notable Synergies

4. Contamination + Null Rod / Collector Ouphie and Meren in play with another creature. Allows accumulation of experience counters for an eventual discard / reanimation from Meren. Examples include Rankle, Delerium Skeins, Mindslicer, Cunning Lethemancer, Bottomless Pit or Liliana
5. Waste Not. Even played itself it ends up being a value engine when opponents wheel (or stops people from wheeling) but it generates value with the discard cards above. It is noteworthy that Sadistic Hypnotist has great synergy here and when they two are in play depending on what is discarded you can get more creatures to continue making people discard.
6. Rankle has proven to be a great value engine in himself, as he functions as both discard, draw, and a sac effect that can turn asymmetrical since Meren returns creatures and gains XP from creatures dying

Notable cards that I have not included.
Razaketh was great, but also very win more and had a tendency to sit in my hand staring at me. It DID win games, and with the recent edition of Pattern of Rebirth in the deck I am considering putting him back in, assuming that I can slot in Life/Death as well.