Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Merieke Ri Berit!

Merieke is a three mana 1/1 that doesn’t untap during our untap step and can tap to gain control of a target creature as long as we control Merieke and when Merieke leaves or becomes untapped we destroy that creature and it can’t be regenerated.

Theft Commanders are not something new, but having her be one of the first ones to do it is really interesting, especially in that when she leaves or untaps it destroys the creature we stole (I am using the Time Spiral version over the original Ice Age version for reference).

The game plan is simple, we steal our opponents creatures to get as much utility as possible and then when we are done we untap Merieke to destroy them, and do a bit of shenanigans with how the rules work.

The first thing that we need to look for are ways to untap Merieke so that we can take control of other creatures while also destroying ones we already did steal.

Pemmin’s Aura is an excellent card because it have multiple options of utility. We can untap the enchanted creature for one mana, give it flying for a turn, give it shroud until end of turn to protect it, or we can change it’s stats, which we won’t use too often, but it’s nice that we have the option.

Fatestitcher is a creature that can tap itself to tap or untap another creature while having an Unearth of one mana, Magic Damper can give a creature we control +1/+1 until end of turn while also giving it hexproof and untapping it, and To Arms! which can untap all creatures we control while also drawing a card.

We can also take advantage of blink and flicker spells as a way to protect Merieke as well as get a leaves the battlefield trigger to destroy a creature we stole, so Ephemerate to get two instances of a one mana blink, Cloudshift to have another one mana instant blink, and Ghostly Flicker to flicker two artifacts, creatures, and/or lands we control.

There is also Split Up, a modal board wipe that can destroy either all tapped creatures, or more for our benefit, destroy all untapped creatures if we want to help clear the board of any stubborn creatures that can’t die.

The next thing that we need for the deck is a way to get the most out of Merieke’s ability as possible.

Robaran Mercenaries is perfect for this because it has vigilance, but it also happens to have all activated abilities of all legendary creatures we control. This means that not only do we get an additional way to steal creatures, and destroy them since the Mercenaries don’t have the untap clause, but we also get any other activated abilities of legendary creatures we include in the deck.

For example, we can include Gogo, Master of Mimicry who has the activated ability to to copy any activated or triggered ability X times, able to choose new targets for the copy. While this ability would normally be unable to be copied, the Mercenaries don’t copy the ability per se, but they give us an additional trigger if we so choose.

Speaking of, there is also Illusionist’s Bracers which we can equip to Merieke to copy her ability while also able to choose new targets, Helm of the Host to make new copies of Merieke to steal even more creatures especially since the Helm gives the token copies haste, and of course Lithoform Engine to have a whole host of ways to copy things, though the one we would use most often would be to copy Merieke’s ability.

There are also plenty of other creatures that have a similar theft ability to Merieke’s that we can use as backup ways to steal our opponent’s creatures.

Sower of Temptation steals a creature so long as it remains on the battlefield, Empress Galina can steal any legendary permanent for two mana, and Callous Oppressor can steal almost any creature except of a certain creature type chosen by an opponent and as long as it remains tapped but we can also choose to untap it or not.

We also happen to have access to a theft creature in Coffin Queen that steals a creature from a graveyard and we control that creature so long as it remains tapped and when it becomes untapped or when the creature we reanimated leaves the battlefield, that creature is exiled instead which can be very useful in getting something removed from the graveyard before it can become a problem.

Since Merieke’s mana value is low, we can also take advantage of plenty of reanimation spells to bring her back into play as opposed to casting her back from the Command Zone.

Restoration Angel, Sun Titan, and Reanimate are some of the better ways to bring Merieke back to the battlefield, or we can also make use of phasing effects from cards like Slip Out the Back, which protects Merieke but also doesn’t destroy the creature since phasing doesn’t technically have the creature enter or leave the battlefield when it comes back.

Last but not least we need a way to win, and what better way than to not only steal our opponent’s creatures and then destroy them, but what if we also make bring them back for us for a longer term stay?

Abyssal Harvester is one of the ways I’m talking about making this happen because not only do we exile a potentially problematic creature from the graveyard that was put there this turn, but we can also make a token copy of that creature in order to use it again.

Dimir Doppelganger becomes a copy of a creature from a graveyard and can switch which creature it is for three mana, Lazav, Wearer of Faces to exile a creature from the graveyard to investigate and when we sacrifice a Clue then Lazav can become a copy of a creature exiled by Lazav, and Waste Management to either exile two cards from a graveyard or all cards from a graveyard if it was kicked and to make a number of 2/2 Zombie creature tokens for each creature exiled this way.

We even have access to a way to steal all of our opponents creatures and steal them by using Merieke and Marvin, Murderous Mimic, who has the activated abilities of all creatures we control that don’t have the same name as Marvin, and Ioreth of the Healing House, who can tap to untap one target permanent or tap to untap two other legendary creatures.

The way it works is we tap Merieke to steal an opponent’s creature, use Ioreth to untap something else and then use Marvin to use Ioreth’s second ability to untap Ioreth and Merieke, tap Merieke to steal another creature and then use Ioreth to untap Marvin and Merieke and have the loop to steal and destroy all creatures our opponents control.

It is a combo that takes a lot of work and while it would probably be cheaper to just play a board wipe to get rid of our opponent’s creatures, unless we had something like Carrion Feeder to turn all of those creatures into ways of making it bigger, or an Ashnod’s Altar to get a ton of colorless mana, or a Spawning Pit to get a ton of creature tokens, all of these being fueld by sacrificing the creatures we steal.

Merieke is a Commander that has a lot of hope’s, many of which can be made all the more difficult if we are playing opponents who don’t have a ton of creatures laying around for us to steal.

Merieke is too weak for Commander Damage to matter, and we can spend a ton of cards and resources to make sure she sticks to the board, but we can only have so many of those in the deck.

Still, as far as Theft Commanders go, Merieke is a fun twist on the usual steal an opponent’s creature value by having an in-built way to destroy that creature as well if you need it.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual