Meren of OG Reanimator (EDH / Commander)

Changes as of 31.05.2020
I stopped working at a MTG-LGS. I was really invested in working there so after quiting I found myself with alot of free time and also it sparked my interesst in playing commander again what was not possible for me before since I was working alot. The first thing I did was revisit basically the last year of MTG-Releases and scavanged everything for possible EDH playable cards. Getting a grip on all that I came back here and started upgrading all my decks with the fancy new cards that have been put out there by wizards lately. After that is done as off today I want to invest some more time into also upgrading all the descriptions for my decks to see how my perspective changed aswell over the past years when I orinially did this. So let's dig in:

Hi! Thanks you very much for dropping by. I would like to introduce you into my thought process and strategy behind this deck.

I picked up the Commander Anthology as my first EDH related product and immediately asked the Lgs Staff for help on upgrading the decks with singles. Alot of people in my playgroup started picking up Meren as a Commander though and I wanted to go for a different theme than the others. I always enjoyed the aristocrat cards in the deck and so I started elaborating that drain theme in the deck.
The general Idea of the Deck is obviously a heavy graveyard focus and a very stretched out and recursive gameplan that stongly leans into the lategame. Draining your opponents really supports this playstyle because of the incremental lifegain and slow creeping death occuring to your opponents. You keep generating insane ammounts of value with Meren and other reanimate cards and eventually drain your opponents out by repeately using some of the bigger hits like Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Putting one of these onto the field once or twice usually is enough since you already chipped away from the other players life total with the smaller drain effects and a bit combat damage here and there.

The backbone of the strategy is the repetiive removal you can abuse like Fleshbag Marauder and Grave Pact I never saw a creature base deck have fun against such an engine. Your enemies will struggle keeping a decent boardstate afloat while you keep building value from your graveyard.
On the other hand you really struggle against some combo decks but this deck wasn't build to compete against these kind of opponents I selectively excluded any major combos or Protean Hulk Win Combos to keep this Deck rather friendly and an easy pick up for most tables.

Things I consider while I play this deck are playing for the future alot. There are alot of predictions going through my head and decisions are made bades on a long term plan. Getting through the early stages of the game is the most difficult part with this deck but you also want to already set up your lategame so trying to be conservative with your cards is extremely important. When you hit the later stages of the games you can practially do anything and will most likely succeed. The biggest fear is always a big piece of graveyard hate though so I also try to keep a backup plan in my hand to quickly get back into the game when that happens.

I appreciate you reading this! If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to ask I'm open to discuss card choices or give further insight into my reasonings.
I hope you liked this little heads up and as always have a great one and don't forget to have fun!

Changes as os Sometime around Dec. 2019
So 2 years later, after loosing my entire collection and starting from scratch alot changed, but this deck didn't.
Well not that much after all still a drain theme a few little changes here and there but that's just because I either don't want to rebuy some cards or found better ones.
A few more words on the deck though
You should look out to always have a so called sacrifice outlet (a card that lets you sacrifice creatures for anything) because you need to get the expericence counters up there asap.
Also have the long game in your mind, this deck is slow and you have to keep that in mind passing on gaining small temporarily advantage and trading that in for bigger long term investments.
Thanks for reading and have a nice one.

Hi. Well its kinda akward writing a description asuming that you already read one of my other ones! But well remember me :D?
This is my Meren of Clan Nel Toth Deck just like the other 5000000 Meren Deck's its a reanimation deck. Thanks for reading have a nice day.

Hehe I know that's a bad joke but knowing it and then still doing it makes it kinda funny in my opinion :P.

"""So enough of boring you into the ground already lets get to it boyz.

Play this Deck if you like:
Grinding your opponents out
Winning via Damage from either creatures or other mechanics.
Reusing your graveyard alot
Having a dedicated Gameplan including tutors

You don't like this Deck
If you want to combo off
Don't like long games
Don't like locking your opponents out
Drain
Loosing against graveyard hate

Meren's ability is that every time a creature besides her on your side of the field dies you get an experience counter
Then at the end of your turn you target a creature in you bin and either get it to your hand or on the field depending if you have enough experience counter matching up the CMC of the choosen creature

How do we abuse this? Well my deck runs a few questioable cards like Bontu the Glorified. The sole reason for this akward card being here is that he serves as a so called "Sacrifice outlet" a card that enables you to sacrifice a creature to do X.
That's really nescesarry for the deck to get through the early game quick because we want to get to 8 experience counters as fast as we can to gain the ability to revive every creature in the deck if it lands in the bin.

How do we win? There is many ways to win with meren but i choose a strategy that fits the late game theme of meren. I want to drain our opponents to zero life with cards like Blood Artits an the likes.

There is not really more to this deck besides you can leave out the tutors and have a vastly different game every time. This deck anyways plays differently every time already which makes it really enjoyable and the mulligans forgiving."""