Have you ever made a Brisela?

In 2016 Wizards of the Coast introduced a new mechanic where two cards could be "melded" together into one big, scary creature. Meld was a hit in EDH because not only was it a fun thing to try to accomplish, it was also brand new, a little weird, and supremely flavorful. Never mind that the melded creatures were often less imposing than the ridiculous creatures we were cobbling together on the regular in our Commander games. It was a lot of work but it was fun.

Eldritch Moon meld commanders like Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Blade could be melded into the Lovecraftian monstrosity Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. In The Brothers' War, meld was brought back. While I never melded a Brisela, I loved my Titania, Voice of Gaea deck and a few times I got to meld Argoth, Sanctum of Nature with her to make Titania, Gaea Incarnate.

In Final Fantasy we've been given another opportunity to play the meld game with a new Golgari Human Cleric that melds with a mono-Black Human Warrior.

Vanille, Cheerful l'Cie will have me mill two cards when she enters and then I'll return a permanent card from my graveyard to my hand. Fang has a trigger that will have me draw a card and lose a life whenever one or more cards leave my graveyard. Fang's ability is limited to once a turn but neither of them is particularly overpowered.

Vanille has to be my commander as she's the one with two colors in her color identity. I'll need to find a way to get Fang into my hand or into my graveyard so Vanille can put Fang into my hand with her ETB trigger. If I've got both of them in play, at the beginning of my first main phase I can pay 3GB to exile them and meld them into Ragnarok, Divine Deliverance.

With vigilance, menace, trample, reach and haste, Ragnarok is ready to rumble. With a 7/6 stat line, Ragnarok is good but not the kind of huge threat we're accustomed to seeing in high powered commander games. Ragnarok also has a death trigger that will let me destroy target permanent and return target nonlegendary permanent card from my graveyard to the battlefield.

I'll be doing a lot of work to set myself up to try to meld Vanille and Fang into Ragnarok. The result is a bigger, scarier creature to be sure, but I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze in terms of pure competitiveness. Brisela made a splash when she first started hitting tables nearly 10 years ago, but not because she was redefining what it meant to be playing cEDH. She was just neat, and fun, and different, and so is Ragnarok.

Today I'll be exploring how to build a deck designed to try to get to Ragnarok, Divine Deliverance. From there, if I can win the game that's fantastic, but my real goal is to have fun, do a silly meld thing, and if I'm lucky maybe I'll position myself to have a shot at victory.

Winning is a goal, but my favorite thing about the meld mechanic is that it gives me another goal to also try to achieve along the way. If I don't win, but I manage to meld Vanille and Fang, at least I did something cool.

Finding Fang

If this deck's goal is primarily to try to meld Vanille and Fang, I'm going to have to have both of them on the battlefield at the same time at the start of my turn. Vanille lets me pull Fang out of my graveyard, so one option is to get Fang into the bin and then cast Vanille. Another option would be to run tutors, but I'm not keen on adding too many tutors into a lower powered deck so I'm going to primarily focus on milling myself. If you want to just throw in a handful of Green and Black tutors you could easily run 8-10 of them and reliably get Fang directly to your hand.

Both Entomb and Corpse Connoisseur will let me search up a creature and put it into my graveyard. I'm also running Eldritch Evolution and Pattern of Rebirth. The former is a sorcery that will let me sacrifice any creature in my deck to tutor up Fang onto the battlefield. The latter is an enchantment that triggers when enchanted creature dies to allow that creature's controller to search their library for a creature and put it onto the battlefield.

I'm running a decent amount of mill with cards like Sinister Starfish, Skull Prophet, Stitcher's Supplier, Underrealm Lich, and Grisly Salvage. Colossal Grave-Reaver is another source of mill that serves a secondary purpose. When this Golgari Dragon is in play, whenever one or more creature cards are put into my graveyard from the library, I can put one of them onto the battlefield. Milling Fang with Vanille already in play won't hurt nearly as bad if I can just plop her into play.

Protecting Ragnarok once it's been transformed is pretty important so I'm running Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Heroic Intervention, and Tamiyo's Safekeeping. I decided to also run Riftsweeper, a two-mana Elf Shaman whose enter the battlefield trigger will let me shuffle an exiled card back into its owner's library. I'm sure tablemates will be as eager to exile Ragnarok as they will be eager to see me meld it in the first place. There's a decent chance that at some point I'll be happy to get Fang back into my library after a well-timed Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.

Things to do with Ragnarok

My melded commander, Ragnarok, Divine Deliverance, has a decent stat line and loads of keywords, so going to combat is the first thing I'll want to do with this commander. Haste means I can attack on the same turn that I meld Vanille and Fang and create Ragnarok. Vigilance means there's no good reason to hold it back. Reach lets me still have a viable blocker for flying threats on other players' turns. Menace and Trample make it easier to get damage through.

I'm running Rogue's Passage to let me get through blockers, but there are a few cards in the deck that are specifically for Ragnarok.

Helm of the Host is a fun card, but there's nothing more fun than making token copies of some weird creature that's a combination of a bunch of cards. Helm is fun to play with mutated creatures and it should be just as fun with meld. I'll make a nonlegendary copy of Ragnarok. This isn't some game-breaking play like it is with Godo, Bandit Warlord. It's good, clean fun and if Helm eats removal that might otherwise have been sent at your commander, that's OK too.

Making legendary copies of a legendary creature doesn't always work out well. Blade of Selves gives equipped creature myriad, which lets me make a token copy of equipped creature when it attacks for each other opponent. That token copy is tapped and attacking, but if the equipped creature is legendary, that attack won't get very far. The token will die to the legend rule.

Blade of Selves is good with Ragnarok because it will give me those death triggers. When Ragnarok dies I'll be able to destroy target permanent and return target nonlegendary permanent card from my graveyard to the battlefield. At a four-player table I'll get two of those triggers.

Ragnarok's 7 power is good but not amazing. It's still good enough to run Pathbreaker Ibex, which has an attack trigger that will give creatures I control +X/+X until end of turn where X is the greatest power among creatures I control. +7/+7 for all of my creatures is enough at some tables to be able to push for the win, and unlike Overwhelming Stampede, Pathbreaker Ibex's trigger is repeatable. For as long as it's able to attack I'll be able to keep getting that +X/+X for all of my creatures.

The only bad thing about all of these cool toys is that it will further incentivize my tablemates to remove Ragnarok. If it gets exiled, that's very bad. If it just gets destroyed, you can re-cast Vanille, put Fang into your hand and then re-cast Fang. You'll still need to wait a turn cycle before you meld them into Ragnarok but it's not like you'll never see your weird melded Ragnarok again.

Odds and Ends

This deck has a few cards that are worth an extra look. I'm running plenty of familiar cards that are either universally good or that are good for decks that want to mill cards into the graveyard. I don't need to extoll the virtues of Eternal Witness or even Sinister Starfish, an 0/3 Black starfish that taps to surveil 1. The cards below are worth an extra mention.

You might wonder why I'd want to use Conjurer's Closet to exile and return Ragnarok at the beginning of my end step, but of course I don't. This is for Vanille. She has an enter-the-battlefield trigger that will mill me two cards and let me return a permanent card from my graveyard to hand. That works nicely with Blade of Selves and I'll be happy to have that happen on my end step. My primary goal with this deck is to dig until I find Fang, after all. Those triggers will help with that.

Hedge Shredder is a card I've been excited about since it came out, but I haven't gotten much use out of it. This 5/5 vehicle lets me mill 2 cards when it attacks, and whenever one or more land cards are put into my graveyard from my library I'll put them onto the battlefield tapped. Every self-mill deck in Green should be running this card, full stop. I have it in a few decks but I just have too many decks and haven't seen it do a lot in games, but I still love this card.

This deck could be running cards like Living Death but I decided to just run Rise of the Dark Realms. In casual games you tend to get more turns and get to the point where it's easy to make the mana you need to cast this sorcery spell. Nine mana is a lot, but if you've cast a few removal spells and boardwipes, a late game Rise of the Dark Realms can easily set you up to win on your next turn.

If this deck is operating on the premise that meld is fun and it gives you an extra goal to try to achieve even if you don't win the game, it makes sense that I'd throw in another pair of cards that can be melded together. I wrote about meld Titania back in 2022 and you can read that column here (https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/stephenjohnson-11282022-titania-voice-of-gaea-in-commander). The thing I like most about this pairing is that I'm playing a self-mill deck and both Titania, Voice of Gaea and Argoth, Sanctum of Nature play into that theme. If I'm able to meld them, I get Titania, Gaea Incarnate.

Titania, Gaea Incarnate makes Ragnarok's 7/6 stat line seem quaint by comparison, as it scales with the number of lands I control. When she enters play I'll return all land cards from my graveyard to the battlefield tapped. I can then use her ability to put four +1/+1 counters on one of my lands and it becomes a land creature with haste.

Your Mileage May Vary

I've hinted about the risks of playing a meld commander and it's worth circling back to that warning one more time. If you don't like when other players remove your stuff and you'll find it extra frustrating to lose a meld creature that you went to great effort to assemble, this deck might not be for you.

Every playgroup is different and lots of lower powered metas have players who are happy to let you (usually) keep your stuff and have fun. If you're in a playgroup full of sweaty spikes who are going to blow up your melded 2-card monstrosity just to grind your gears, you'll want to lean a lot more into ways to protect it. Run Hammer of Nazahn and Mithril Coat. Play more cards that can give hexproof and/or indestructible at instant speed. This deck is playable in those more challenging metas, but you may want to make adjustments to this list.

I always say that these lists are just starting points. Bend and shape them until they are the deck you want to play, with your pet cards and favorite staples. Make them your own.

Vanille & Fang | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Vanille, Cheerful l'Cie

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Colossal Grave-Reaver
• 1 Corpse Connoisseurfoil
• 1 Deathrite Shaman
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fang, Fearless l'Cie
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Heartwood Storyteller
• 1 Kessig Cagebreakers
• 1 Lord of Extinction
• 1 Massacre Wurmfoil
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Neverwinter Dryad
• 1 Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Riftsweeper
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Sinister Starfish
• 1 Six
• 1 Skull Prophet
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Stitcher's Supplier
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Titania, Voice of Gaea
• 1 Underrealm Lich

• Instants (10)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Grisly Salvage
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Eldritch Evolution
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Jarad's Orders
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Splendid Reclamation

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Pattern of Rebirth
• 1 Phyrexian Arena

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Blade of Selves
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Hedge Shredder
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (37)
• 1 Argoth, Sanctum of Nature
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 13 Forest
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 13 Swamp
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Underground Mortuary
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to drop this list down in power and/or price, you'd probably start with some of the higher-priced cards. Throwing in a more budget-friendly mana base won't affect your play in a lower powered meta that much and you can always run Amulet of Vigor as a way to make lands that enter tapped more playable. Just the other day I was at a table where someone played a bounce land (one that enters tapped but that can tap for 2 mana) and untapped it with Amulet of Vigor. There are ways to make low budget cards work better. I don't think this list has a ton of room to drop in power.

Playing Vanille and Fang in a higher-powered meta is going to be a challenge, but the range of power in EDH is a long and complicated scale going from janky weak "joke" decks that do very little, all the way up to resilient cEDH lists that reliably win before casual decks even really start playing the game. To push this list up in power you'd want to look at game changers and other higher-powered staples. You might want to think about some of your favorite combos in Green and Black to see if any of them fit into what this deck is already doing.

Just off the top of my head I think Cultivator Colossus and Abundance could fit in well here, along with Nim Deathmantle combo. I've been playing at lower powered tables more in recent years so I'm less focused on how to break decks wide open and make them truly degenerate. I'm sure there is room to push this deck up in power, but if you're looking for more power you might just look at commanders that are simply better at winning games. Vanille, Cheerful l'Cie and Fang, Fearless l'Cie (in the 99) are fine cards and could be a lot of fun to play at the right tables, but I don't think they're really all that powerful.

Final Thoughts

I hadn't expected to come across a meld commander in Final Fantasy, but I picked up another prerelease pack at an LGS and came across a full art Vanille. Looking at her I had a funny feeling that I had seen a full art card with a very similar look. I didn't immediately pull her up in scryfall, but when I got home I went through my other Final Fantasy pulls and came across a full art Fang. I must have glanced through those cards but missed the fact that Fang's backside isn't a normal Magic card back. Maybe I was distracted by a better pull from that pack, but I was happy when I realized I had both cards in paper.

I have much of what I'd need to build this list in paper. That Titania meld deck is one I had in paper a few years ago, so I could pull the trigger and sleeve this list up. The decision will likely come down to which of several playgroups I expect to play the deck in. My old LGS has a lot of pods that are so competitive and so full of removal and interaction (high-powered EDH) that this list would probably just be frustrating to play unless the table agreed to play weaker decks. The other groups I play in would probably welcome this level of play, and those pods are what have been driving my deckbuilding in recent months towards slower, less potent brews.

There is no "right" way to play EDH. If you enjoy slower games with less interaction, you're not a "bad" deckbuilder or player. What matters in our weird, shared experience of a Magic format is that we're having fun. cEDH players have fun by pulling out all the stops and playing with almost zero regard for anything but winning. Casual players have all kinds of different approaches to the format, and there are plenty of pods out there where a Vanille / Fang deck would be welcomed and would be a lot of fun to play and to play against.

If you end up building Vanille, Cheerful l'Cie, I hope you find the right brew for your playstyle and you find the right tables to play it at. As always, if you do decide to use this list as your starting point, definitely make it your own.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!