Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Legendary Creature — Human Shaman
Whenever another creature you control dies, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step, choose target creature card in your graveyard. If that card's mana value is less than or equal to the number of experience counters you have, return it to the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BG
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Commander 2015
- Price
- $1.41
- EDHREC rank
- #1450
Meren of Clan Nel Toth turns every creature death into a resource, accumulating experience counters that let her return bigger and bigger threats from your graveyard at end of turn — for free. The cost is a four-mana legend in Golgari with no immediate board impact, so she needs protection and a stocked yard to do her best work; taxing her with something like Coretapper dying repeatedly is exactly how the engine goes infinite, and commanders like Teval, the Balanced Scale prove how absurd recursive creature value becomes when paired with enter-the-battlefield triggers.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Teval, the Balanced Scale
Teval, the Balanced Scale is an experience-counter commander in its own right, and Meren of Clan Nel Toth slots in as a recursive engine that keeps refueling Teval's death-trigger payoffs turn after turn — over half of all Teval decks run her for exactly that reason.
Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh
Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh leans on treasure generation and aristocrats-style sacrifice loops, and Meren of Clan Nel Toth provides the self-sustaining recursion that keeps those loops going without relying on cards in hand.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Savra, Queen of the Golgari wants creatures dying on repeat to drain opponents and sacrifice their boards, and Meren of Clan Nel Toth guarantees the supply chain by returning sacrificed creatures directly to play.
Eddie Brock
Eddie Brock punishes opponents with symbiote tokens and wants a steady stream of creature deaths to maximize his triggers — Meren of Clan Nel Toth keeps refilling the battlefield so the pressure never lets up.
Sméagol, Helpful Guide
Sméagol, Helpful Guide mills and ramps through creature deaths, and Meren of Clan Nel Toth converts that graveyard accumulation into a late-game recursion engine that scales harder than almost any other two-card package in the color identity.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Meren of Clan Nel Toth was built to live — the long game, multiplayer politics, and abundance of sacrifice outlets all let her snowball experience counters into a one-sided reanimation engine that takes over games by the mid-turns. In Legacy and Vintage she's legal but rarely seen, since those formats move too fast for a four-mana legend with no immediate effect to compete with the raw power of dedicated reanimator shells. Oathbreaker is the one other format worth considering: as a signature-spell-less commander, she'd head a recursion shell that can operate similarly to her Commander role, though the smaller starting life total speeds up the clock on her engine.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Meren of Clan Nel TothCoretapperMagistrate's Scepter
Infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$1.41 cheap tier
At $1.41, Meren of Clan Nel Toth sits firmly in budget territory given her power level — she's one of the strongest value engines in Golgari Commander and the price reflects wide reprint availability rather than any weakness. That combination of low cost and high ceiling makes her one of the best dollars-per-impact cards in the format.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.