Pointed Discussion

If i take something over during combat, is it removed from combat?

How does this get pronounced? My best theory is "Mare-reek Ree Bare-reet".

this card is just unreasonably good. not broken, but....'Dude, nice' good.

Interesting. I can't think of any other creature stealers that have a "kill me and I kill your creature too" clause. Not bad.

how to untap?
make her an artifact with Memnarch, Mycosynth Lattice or Thousand-Year Elixir and then Clock of Omens?
kill, kill, kill! and maybe abuse and then kill.

general?

I'd pronounce it Mare-ee-a-kay Ree Bare-it. Kind of hard to write it out but whatever.

She's fairly strong, but incredibly easy to kill.

A pretty good general. Opens up 3 colours, and has a good ability.
As smart opponent will wait and play his big-gun when they know they can play an even bigger one next turn. Faking you into using this by attacking with the 1st before playing the 2nd, since you'll want to save her ability so you dont control a Raging goblin or something for the whole game!

Esper wants yer critters.

Based on a poem about a seductress or temptress. Very powerful card for its relatively low cost. Small body but steals creatures with no "give back to opponent" clause. First time I read her I thought she was like Rubinia (i.e. just doesn't HAVE to untap). Oh well. White and Blue have numerous ways of untapping creatures too.

Nice. But what creature type in addition to Human should she have? IE: What makes sense as her class or profession?

@A3Kitsune:
I think being a cleric would emphasize her persuasive/missionary mechanic.
By the way, there is already a Human Cleric Wizard in the same colors and block: Wandering Mage.

The poem it's based on, as well as the original name of the card, is "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats.

Freed From the Real

Omg, I hadn't thought of freed from the real, that would be insane.

Dang....nice combo.

Also combos well with storm crow.

Crab Umbra

One of the cards that benefits the most from Thousand-Year Elixir and tapping / untapping effects! :) Untapping her in response to her tapping ability, it's the old dirty trick of having the "negative" ability resolve before the "positive" ability and thus rendering the "negative" ability useless, although the "negative" ability of destroying the creature isn't always bad..

Norritt, Seasinger, and Phantasmal Terrain. These three make a good basics for a kill/capture deck. Throw in a few Terrors, a few Swords to Plowshares...yeah. Ouch. And the reason for Phantasmal Terrain? In case you need to use it on yourself to gain a swamp or plain mana.

butterface

What a name.

Hm... Freed from the Real Mycosynth Lattice Darksteel Forge

The creature isn't sacrificed, it's destroyed when she untaps. Thus, the Forge means you get to keep it indefinitely, as well as every other creature you steal! Completely useless in anything other than casual play, but....

brb making an EDH deck. Need help finding the pieces of the combo? Fabricate Enlightened Tutor ANY BLACK TUTOR, it's like her colors were MADE for tutoring. Sounds like evil, evil fun! And the best part of that combo? Once you have it off and all your permanents are indestructible... Wrath of God Day of Judgment Nevinyrral's Disk Damnation. It's like this deck almost builds itself!

I've just started using her as a general, and I like her a lot. That deck doesn't do much at first, and she gets me from "easy target" to "deal with later".

pemmin's aura :D

She has Esper colors?

Why?!? I understand cards like chromium, but this?

*read first part of card*
*think: Oh well they will just kill her after I take control of it*
*keep reading*

I'll put a crab umbra on this ***
Bitches love crab umbras

4.5/5 because they can insta remove her before she takes control of anything. But then again, thats really her only downfall, besides no haste.

You do realize that you gain control of a creature , and you can keep taking you're opponent's creatures from a permanent's ability right? And that they don't get it back...you destroy it , so you can any big boy from their side of the field without shroud and whoop their asses with it , then you destroy it unless it has indestructibility.

Freed From the Real makes this a constantly usable U cost spot removal, which I'm a fan of.

You're thinking of making her an EDH general, aren't you? Be careful. She's incredibly effective, but she kills fun. When you get her going with a few repeatable untap effects, you can wipe your opponent's creatures in a turn and then leave them grumbling and downtrodden, not even wanting to play creatures because you'll just kill them or throw them back in their faces. She's easy to kill, but cheap enough to cast that she'll come back three or four times in a single game. Your friends will hate her, which is detrimental to the casual environment EDH was intended to create.

@ MisterAction; great comment, but she's pretty fragile and if a table full of people can't kill a 1/1, they deserve to lose.

She can control two or more creatures if you untap her in response to the activation trigger. Who's the pimp now? >:D

Deathless Angel might come in handy. She'll protect Merieke, and can save creatures from being destroyed when Merieke becomes untapped.

Uhh... I think most people tend to forget, she has a "give the creature back" clause... all you have to do is steal her yourself. Sure, not always easy or effective; but this does set up a few interesting interactions.

A, you steal an indestructible creature. Clearly, she can untap, and "destroy" it. But, you still only control it under the condition that you control Merieke, so if someone bounces her, you get your guy back.

B, the exact opposite, assumes you're stealing an average creature, perhaps with the intention of killing it or some such. So you tap, gain control of it. They use Grab The Reins on her, and you find yourself unable to respond for some raisin; they get her and their dude back. Well, turn passes, you get your Merieke back, tapped, but you decide to untap her to steal something else... and the guy you don't even have control of suddenly dies, because the delayed trigger she creates doesn't seem to be contingent on if you control the creature or not, only that you targeted it, and it resolved.

Realy, noone thinks she would pair well with an Intruder Alarm?

@Rakdos - yes, if something switches ownership during combatm, it is removed from combat.

Unbender Tine, Pemmin's Aura, Thousand-Year Elixir, Crab Umbra, Freed From The Real.

You're welcome. Remember, untapping causes the creature you stole with her to be destroyed. If you stole an indestructible creature, it won't be destroyed and you keep control of it until she leaves the battlefield.

Ghostly Flicker was like invented for this card. You tap Merieke Ri Berit to gain control of some thing. Play Ghostly Flicker targeting her and the creature you controlled. You get both back under your control untapped. Your Merieke ready to steal another creature at will.

She inspires me to make Esper EDH.

@Pyronfirelord: Except that Merieke will be summoning sick.

I have this as a commander with a variety of untap sources. A lucky turn three Commander is pretty damn good and a turn four stealer is even better.

I do think Rubinia Soulsinger is generally better because that card is green so there's land ramp available.

I have a question: Say I have her out and control an opponents creature. As Merieke is about to be destroyed, and I blink the creature out, will it be destroyed upon returning?

Rubinia Soulsinger's descendant?

If I tap her to gain control of a creature but flicker her in response to my tap, she then leaves play and comes back before the gain control ability resolves. So what happens? Do you permanently gain control of the creature? Because i think technically you treat the now flickered merieke as a new creature but I still don't know what happens.

@justyray: the creature will become destroyed. When you tap her to activate her ability, the ability goes onto the stack. You respond to the ability with something like cloudshift targeting her, cloudshift resolves, she flickers, puts her leaves play trigger onto the stack. The leaves play trigger resolves and destroys the creature. Finally, the tap ability resolves and does nothing. It's like the classic oblivion ring trick.

Once the tap ability has resolved, if you cloudshift the creature you steal (not Merieke), then you get to keep it permanently. If you Ghostly Flicker both of them (as someone else in the comments suggested) then you get to keep the creature and you get to use Merieke again.

Combo with Thornbite Staff and destroy all the creatures for the price of one.

Actually, no, I wasn't thinking of making her my EDH general. I have a friend who just built one with her. I haven't played him yet, but I am contemplating ways to steal her from him and use her against him with my Zur the Enchanter deck. I have plenty of thieving spells (Puca's Mischief would do it), and I can use Zur to find that Freed from the Real, Pemmin's Aura or Intruder Alarm to untap her. Nothing like screwing over a friend's control deck by turning his own general against him.

@Myrs:

The whole heavy aspect of Merieke decks is why I suggested stealing her with Puca's Mischief, rather than a more conventional route like Dominate. If you can slip Puca through when your opponent is tapped out, it is no longer counterable. Of course, there is also the fact that I could slip something like Dominate through when my opponent is tapped out as well (it helps that it's an instant). Or there is always the option of using my own counterspells to counter his counters. Just because my spells can be countered doesn't mean the strategy doesn't work. That argument is like the whole "dies to removal" argument. It's technically correct, but so what? The point of my comment was to suggest ways to use control cards to control a control deck, which is always a good time. It won't work every time, but it's still fun to try.

Oh, you just attacked with Emarkul, your only creature leaving me at 1 life and only three lands? I cast Merieke Ri Berit. Go ahead, take your turn, I DARE YOU.

@ TheMurderousKitten

Yeah, looking back, sorry 'bout that. That is as good a plan as any to deal with her, and this commander is so cruel it certainly deserves to be stolen. Just getting all defensive of my favorite commander is all :P

Anyhow, speaking from experience, a really solid commander. Pop a Swiftfoot Boots on her and you'll often find your opponent grunting in frustration about what they could have played. Need some untappers? Here's some I use:
Stonybrook Angler, Fatestitcher, Tideforce Elemental, Galvanic Alchemist, Pemmin's Aura, Puppet Strings, Captain of the Mists, Thousand-Year Elixir, Crab Umbra, Niblis of the Breath, Freed from the Real, Puppeteer, Aphetto Alchemist. Throw in Illusionist's Bracers and you can gain control of up to 4 creatures at a time.

Note: playing her in multiplayer paints a giant X on your head. Gold for 1v1s, though.

Busted General, at 3 mana she waits for targets to hit the table, there's tons of ways to untap her. Even with greens mana ramp I think she is better than Rubinia (I like rubinia too though) just because Merike is always waiting for the good stuff to come out.

Run with Adarkar Valkryie and Avacyn, Angel of Hope to keep what you take, and Indtruder Alarm can be total lols.

cheers

@Stormcrows4Tots: it depends on how you're blinking it out. If you used Cloudshift or Flicker or something like that, they resolve, the creature comes back right after they resolve. Since Merieke's triggered ability is still on the stack, when it resolves the creature dies. If you used Turn to Mist, or Nephalia Smuggler, or something like that, they resolve, the creature gets exiled, the triggered ability resolves, and sees no creature to kill. At the end of the turn, the creature comes back under the control of the player the blink card says it does. (some of them say 'owner's control' and some say 'your control')

@Justyray: This is a similar situation, and it again depends on what cards you use. If your blink card returns to the battlefield immediately (with a 'then' statement), adrian.malacoda is correct. Since her {T} ability resolves after she blinks, the blink effect hasn't done anything. Merieke comes in untapped, but if she dies or becomes untapped, your stolen dude will die. However, if your flicker returns at the end step instead, her ability will resolve with no Merieke on the battlefield to link to the second ability, and you get the creature permanently. Merieke comes back at your end step untapped, ready to steal something new.

I just learned that you can untap her in response to her ability resolving: Here's how that works

-Merieke's {T} ability goes on the stack
-Some instant-speed untap ability in response
-Untap ability resolves, and you can activate her {T} again.

Since you untapped her before you gained control of anything, the triggered ability doesn't do anything yet. Now if she untaps, all of the creatures you control through her will die.

This allows you to permanently gain control of as many guys as you have untap effects. At first I thought untappers just allowed her to kill things for {T}, which is also okay, to be fair.

Rubinia Soulsinger is another similar card, but merieke has a few advantages:

-Soulsigner doesn't kill the creatures when you lose control of them, which means your opponents get their dudes back when she dies or when something bigger you want to grab comes along

-Merieke costs {2} less, which is VERY significant

Since both cards can abuse the stack using untappers, about the same portion of your deck will be devoted to untap combo pieces. You need sac. outlets in Rubinia too, however. Merieke is worse if you can't untap her, but overall, I think Merieke is better overall, but for EDH, it's mostly whether you want green or black since the things you can steal on T3 are mostly irrelevant.

omg, once you steal Avacyn, Angel of Hope, (or have one of your own in the deck and out), you can steal EVERYTHING and untap her and KEEP EVERYTHING!!!