Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (Merieke Ri Berit / Combo) (EDH / Commander) [Revision 226]

Merieke Ri Berit Untap Combo
Goal
The goal of this deck is to find an infinite untap + mana combo, draw the deck, and win by looping Blue Sun's Zenith with Sensei's Divining Top.

Combo Lines

• Illusionist's Bracers line - we need either Aphetto Alchemist or Tidewater Minion to make it a two card combo or two of the other untappers making it a three card combo. Alchemist and Minion are the only untappers that can target themselves so they're ideal. The way this works is that we target an equipped untapper with the untap ability of an untapper. We resolve one copy of the ability, then hold priority and untap something else with the untapper. After that we let the other ability resolve untapping the untapper. This way we've netted one extra untap that can be targeted at anything like lands, rocks, our commander or even tap down our opponents' stuff in the case of Fatestitcher.
• Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal line - this is a very familiar line and I'm not going to explain it any further. Just note that it also grants us infinite untaps on our creatures, too, which means we can untap lands so the combo can actually run on two mana + an untapper (or theoretically even a single mana and two untappers).
• Pemmin's Aura or Freed from the Real line - these run off of untappers. We need some good targets for untaps: Gilded Lotus, Chromatic Orrery or Lotus Field. The way this works is that we tap one of the good targets for mana, then untap it with an untapper and untap the untapper with one of the floating blue you've produced. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. We proceed to untap the untapper repeatedly with the infinite mana we have in order to get infinite untaps on everything.

Outlets

• X-spells will draw us our entire deck. They're all instant speed and some of them can target other players, too.
• Sensei's Divining Top can be activated, then in response untapped with infinite untaps, tapped again etc. Once we start resolving the Top's abilities the first one draws us a random card and puts the Top on top of the library, the second can't put the Top on top anymore so it just draws a card (the Top) and the third draws a random card again etc. This way we can draw our entire library. The good thing about this loop is that we can draw cards one by one until we hit an important card. This circumvents the inherent weakness of drawing our deck with an X-spell where X=library which could be responded to with instant speed forced draw which would lose us the game.

Looping

• Blue Sun's Zenith is the final piece of the puzzle. We target our opponents with it after which it "shuffles in" to our library being the only card there. Re-draw with the Top.
• Timetwister is the "more powerful variant" way of looping everything in our library. With an empty library, infinite mana, infinite untaps and the Top in play we cast Timetwister letting us dump our entire hand and grave into our library. Re-draw with the Top and cast whatever you need.
  Lands
  The land base is optimised for Necropotence on curve. Double blues are also often necessary so we run all duals, shocks, fetches, pains and the two Shadowmoor filters that can produce blue. We rely a bit on some utility lands:
• Academy Ruins, Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Volrath's Stronghold can all pick up pieces we've lost and this way we can skimp on recursion and save card slots for other things.
• Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Hall of the Bandit Lord are discussed in the "Oddities" section.
• Tolaria West is discussed in the "Tutors" section.
• Cephalid Coliseum acts as player removal. You target a player with an empty library with it and they'll lose the game. In a pinch it can also let us go through some cards.
• Minamo, School at Water's Edge can untap Merieke or Chromatic Orrery.
• In the lucky case we actually hit Flagstones of Trokair and Lotus Field in the same hand we get an additional land. Otherwise it's just a dumb white source.

Ramp

Nothing special here except for Chromatic Orrery which we'll discuss later. All rocks fuel the infinite combos so they have a double role in running this deck. It's also important to remember that all the untappers can untap rocks and lands acting as slower ramp. The deck puts out surprising amounts of mana with all the untapping going on.

Draw

Somewhat standard except the abundance of X-draw which is necessary for our combo. The deck produces a nice amount of mana with all the rocks and untappers so it's actually possible to draw a decent amount of cards with an X-spell (at instant speed in the end step of the player right before us).

Tutors

• Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Lim-Dul's Vault are useful for finding any combo pieces, including creatures and enchantments that are usually difficult to tutor for in Esper.
• Merchant Scroll, Mystical Tutor and Solve the Equation all find Dramatic Reversal or an X-spell needed to draw our deck.
• Enlightened Tutor, Fabricate and Transmute Artifact can all find either Isochron Scepter or Illusionist's Bracers.
• Muddle the Mixture hits Aphetto Alchemist, Illusionist's Bracers, Pull from Tomorrow, various counterspells and worst case scenario Demonic Tutor.
• Tolaria West finds all of our utility lands, Lotus Field, Pact of Negation, one of the Moxen or Mana Crypt. Very versatile.

Oddities

• Ertai's Meddling - this is a "{1}{U} Counter target Dovin's Veto" spell. It exiles a spell instead of countering it essentially letting us stop uncounterable spells. It also catches Supreme Verdict and Boseiju, Who Shelters All in case someone is running them.
• Disallow - stops nasty disruption like Cephalid Coliseum and other forced draw. We're quite vulnerable when our deck is empty and we're looping BSZ. We're running infinite mana at this point already so it doesn't really matter what it costs as long as it can catch all threats.
• Chromatic Orrery - enables certain combo lines but more importantly it is also a win condition by itself. With infinite mana and untaps we can cast our commander and use the Orrery's last ability to draw cards. Our ramp package is decent so getting it out is not difficult at all.
• Hall of the Bandit Lord - it's a tapped land but most of our untappers can untap it on the turn it comes in. More importantly it's a haste enabler for the untappers. Having to wait for a full turn cycle with some low toughness dorks is just asking for it.
• Boseiju, Who Shelters All - can again be untapped on the turn it comes in by an untapper. It's crucial nobody counters our spells once we've established infinite mana and untaps so this is an additional means of protection.
• Capsize - it's another outlet for infinite mana. It can remove problematic permanents for its regular mode and with buyback we can wipe the entire board.
• Swiftfoot Boots - our only means of giving Merieke haste. Protects untappers (or gives them haste). Lightning Greaves are not used because shroud makes targeting the creatures with additional untaps awkward.

Notable Exclusions

I will update the list based on comments.

• Fierce Guardianship - our commander isn't guaranteed to be out as she is not necessary for the combo to run.
• Tainted Pact / Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle - it's an untap combo deck. Pure flavour reasons. The deck would be built very differently if it revolved around those combos.
• Silence - couldn't fit it in easily. I think it's better to have a counterspell at hand than to have Silence but this is debatable and I'm more than welcome to hear arguments against and for it.
• Reshape - not enough targets. Cannot target rocks because those are needed for the combo and also Reshape can only be used when we already have Dramatic Reversal.
• Basalt Monolith and Grim Monolith - I would love to fit these in for their ease of use but there's very little wiggleroom in the deck as it is so these got cut. Again, I'll gladly take arguments for and against them.
• Reanimate and other reanimate effects - they are just redundant with Volrath's Stronghold. Also with so many tutors it's usually easier to go find a new untapper than it is to try and salvage a dead one.
• Anguished Unmaking is just so awkwardly coloured it's not worth running it. It's also three mana which is a pain to hold up.
• Mystic Sanctuary - there are not enough Islands for this to work, ever.

Merieke Ri Berit

Merieke Ri Berit is mostly there for the colours but it's also the only commander in these colours that has anything to do with untapping. There are many ways to break Merieke's ability but the most important one for us is untapping her repeatedly. If we activate her, in response untap her and then activate her ability again we gain controls of multiple creatures that do not die. This is an important part of our removal package as it can answer all creature threats. With infinite untaps she can even take on an army of tokens if need be.

Strengths

This deck shines against combo decks and other single-threat decks because it has offensive counterspell power and Merieke to deal with creatures. The spells we carry can hit all kinds of targets (Praetor's Grasp, Disallow, Chain of Vapor) so it's geared to both disrupt and defend itself from a multitude of threats.
This deck can also push through some forms of stax because it can steal pieces (Opposition Agent, Hullbreacher), produce decent mana and untapping combos don't require casting unlike Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal. It's hard to respond to untapping things, too, because regular counterspells do not work.

Weaknesses

Go wide and aggro, fast combat decks. This deck uses its life heavily as a resource so when facing against a very fast aggro deck it just crumbles if it can't get lucky draws.
Tutor disruption hits hard like with any combo deck that has multiple pieces.