ThatPinguino's Magic Lessons: Morph Shenanigans

I’m back again with another look at Manifest and this time I have a deck list! I’m going to break down some of my card choices and go over some of the core synergies that make the decks go. This is my first foray into deck breakdowns so if I don’t cover anything that you would like to know, just ask me in the comments.

Whisperwood Elemental x 4

Icefeather Aven x 4

Rattleclaw Mystic x 4

Ashcloud Phoenix x 4

Hooded Hydra x 3

Sagu Mauler x 3

Prophet of Kruphix x 2

Wildcall x 4

Temur Charm x 4

Secret Plans x 3

Ghostfire Blade x 2

Island x 4

Forest x 4

Mountain x 3

Frontier Bivouac x 4

Yavimaya Coast x 4

Shivan Reef x 4

This deck list is a little rough and light on some disruptive instants that I would like to add, but I like the overall skeleton of this morphing nightmare. The back bone of this deck is Whisperwood Elemental and Wildcall. Both of these manifest makers setup all of the morph creatures in the deck to flip for relatively small mana investments and they add a level of confusion to your creatures that is incredibly useful. The normal down side of playing a morph deck is that, while playing a creature face down does add some mystery to your cards, every morph creature you play face-down is over-costed when you first play them. A colorless 2/2 for 3 mana is usually a terrible investment and just making that investment in a game of Standard tells your opponent, “you had better kill this thing before it flips because once it does it is going to wreck your life.” Wildcall and Whisperwood Elemental mess up that equation by adding facedown cards that could be meaningless to your board. Furthermore, the manifest creatures that Wildcall and Whisperwood Elemental create are actually cost effective! Wildcall always creates an efficient creature regardless of how much you pay and Whisperwood Elemental just makes creatures for free. Both of these cards set the table for some of the huge blowouts that this deck can unload.

Rattleclaw Mystic and Icefeather Aven are two early creatures that double as utility spells when played face-down. Mystic allows you to flip your big monsters a turn early (or several if you play it face-down), helps you get all of your colors of mana, and it puts on a bit of pressure when it attacks. Icefeather Aven is efficient whether you play it face-up or face-down and simply being a 2/2 flier for 2 mana is strong enough to be playable without its great ability. However, Icefeather Aven also happens to have the ability to return a creature to its owner’s hand when it flips face-up. Its bounce ability helps offset some of the tempo loss that is inherent in playing morphed creatures. Without the ability to bounce or destroy some early threats a morph deck would really have a hard time keeping up with aggressive decks. Without Icefeather Aven providing some spell-like versatility the whole deck would suffer. Keep in mind that playing Icefeather or Mystic face-up on turn 2 is often the right play, especially against decks that put on a lot of early pressure or clogs the board with big-butted blockers like Sylvan Caryatid or Courser of Kruphix.

Ashcloud Phoenix is a huge problem for opposing decks because of its ability to constantly threaten the opponent and play outstanding defense. This flier allows you to block and trade with impunity since it comes back to life as a 2/2 whenever it dies. Ashcloud creates card advantage simply by being in play since it can eat multiple removal spells and keep coming back for more. Ashcloud is one of the only creatures in the deck that should be played face-up almost every time you cast it from your hand.

Hooded Hydra might be a little too clever in this deck but the potential value is just too enticing for me not to try it. Here’s the deal: if you manifest Hooded Hydra with Whisperwood Elemental or Wildcall, then you can flip it for its regular mana cost of 2 green mana. It’s important to mention that when you flip Hooded Hydra it gets 5 +1/+1 counters regardless of how you flip it, meaning you get a 5/5 creature for 2 mana and it turns into 5 1/1 snakes when it dies. I know that this grand scheme might not work very often, but when it does it is going to be so pretty. Playing Hooded Hydra face-down isn’t that bad of a consolation prize, but it is really the manifest interaction that has me excited.

Sagu Mauler is the scariest morph creature in the deck and once it turns face-up it is just about impossible to stop. In a Standard format that is largely defined by Siege Rhino having a 6/6 hexproof trampler seems like a nice answer.

Prophet of Kruphix allows you to actually keep your un-morph mana up at all times and keep the flood of creatures coming from the mid to the late game. Morph decks can be very slow and mana-hungry, but Prophet of Kruphix solves both of those problems by doubling your mana and letting you play creatures on your opponent’s turn.

Secret Plans and Ghostfire Blade both add survivability to your face-down creatures and give your otherwise slow-midrange deck some added utility in the early turns. If you land a Blade or lay some Plans in the first 2 turns you will be in a pretty good position once turn 3 comes around and morph comes online. Remember that Ghostfire Blade can be equipped to any face-down creature for a measly 1 mana.

The only instant in the deck as of now is Temur Charm and I think you should keep all 4 of them for the foreseeable future. All three modes of this charm are relevant almost all of the time and it just serves so many functions in this deck. It does everything from slow your opponent down, to kill an important creature, to end the game.

The deck’s land base is pretty set with the only real problem being Frontier Bivouac coming into play tapped. I don’t know if potentially slowing down an already slow deck is worth the more stable mana base, especially since almost every creature in the deck can be played for 3 colorless mana.

` I hope that you enjoy this quirky little deck. I’ve had a blast playing it during my tests and I plan on taking some variation of it to my next FNM. If you’re sick of rhinos and whips then give tree elementals and phoenix’s a try!

Three questions as I tried creating my own version of this deck after playing yours:

1. No removal (ignoring the Aven)? Reality Shift?

2. Didn't this have Trail of Mystery before?

3. Mastery of the Unseen? I know this deck is currently Temur, but you're basically playing R for the Phoenix and the charm. Could this deck work as UG splash W?

@bollard: 1. I think Reality Shift or Wild Slash will likely replace some amount of Ghostfire Blades, Secret Plans, or Hooded Hydras. I built this list as a pretty straightforward deck with room for various improvements. I think the deck will likely need some way to deal with aggressive creatures on turns 1 and 2 and Reality Shift is a great answer that knocks an enemy creature down to your level.

2. It did, but I want to try secret plans rather than Trail of Mystery because the static +0/+1 bump to every morph creature as well as the card draw seemed more potent than the mana fixing and temporary +2/+2. Without Secret Plans the deck has no card draw of any kind and it has to rely on the pseudo card advantage created by creatures like Whisperwood Elemental and Ashwing Phoenix. However, I could see Trail replacing Secret Plans because of the superior mana fixing and the blowout potential that the temporary +2/+2 boost can allow. Also Trail has a ludicrous amount of synergy with Whisperwood Elemental, you can tutor up all of your basic lands in a real hurry. I think the solution will likely be to have a split of Secret Plans and Trail of Mystery once everything is all tested out.

3. Mastery is a very cool card, but it necessitates adding a 4th color. You could remove the red from this deck and instead rely on the Whisperwood Elemental/ Master of Perls synergy, but I think Ashcloud Phoenix and Temur Charm are too strong for me to cut. Mastery is just so slow in a deck that is already slow and Master of Perls won't have a ton of creatures to pump up with its flip ability. I think GWU is an option, but I prefer the power that comes with some of the red creatures that this deck employs. Also I've played with Mastery of the Unseen in draft before and you would be amazed at how little that does in a deck that wants to be proactive. It really shines as a control finisher.

@thatpinguino: Damn just edited my comment before I saw your reply. Wild Slash is a good shout, I totally forgot you have access to that with R.

Maybe the card draw is nicer here now I think about it. In fact you said the mana base is fixed, but maybe Wooded Foothills takes a spot there? The phoenix is RR so the extra fixing would be nice.

I'm starting to agree with your assessment of Mastery of the Unseen too.

@bollard: Wooded Foothills is an option, but that adds a lot to the $ cost of the deck and it doesn't fix your mana especially well in a three color deck. You can certainly play it if you have a few as it can't really hurt that badly, but I prefer to play fetchlands in decks that actually make use of the graveyard in some way. Like if I played Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time I would definitely play as many fetchlands as possible. The Foothills is definitely an upgrade, but it is not so huge an upgrade that I feel the need to prescribe it. If you add Foothills I would cut some amount of the pain lands and a Bivouac to make room, don't cut too many basic lands or else you can't use Trail of Mystery and your Foothills stop being dual-lands.

Hitting your land drops every turn is definitely a strong reason to play Trail of Mystery and the deck thinning is real when you have Whisperwood Elemental in play. However, this deck really vomits cards on the board (doubly so if you have Prophet of Kruphix in play) and can leave itself vulnerable to a huge blowout from Perilous Vault or some similar board wipe. Secret Plans keeps the gas flowing in a way that Trail does not. Also saving your morph creatures from Wild Slash is likely going to be a big deal in the coming standard format. It is a real bummer when your 3 drop is killed by a 1 mana spell and that 3 drop would have become a Sagu Mauler if given some time.

If you're running a Manifest deck with blue, you should include Kheru Spellsnatcher and Thousand Winds. With Manifest, as you mentioned with Hooded Hydra, creatures with Morph can be flipped for their morph cost or for their mana cost, so it's [1][U] cheaper to flip the Spellsnatcher and [1] cheaper to flip Winds.

Icefeather Aven seems a little underpowered in this deck - investing 5 mana to get a 2/2 flier and a bounce isn't great, and having a 2/2 flier on turn 2 isn't amazing in such a slow format. Heir of the Wilds is a more efficient two-drop, and since the deck is slow, a few Elvish Mystics will help it get online much faster. Also, I know you've gone for a creature-focused build here, but that means you're really missing out on some of Temur's most powerful cards, like Crater's Claw and Stubborn Denial. I also think Stormbreath Dragon would be a much better finisher for the deck than Sagu Mauler, since they both flip up for 5 CMC.

That aside, this looks like a real fun deck, and I like your breakdowns of why each card is in the deck and what it's job is. That's something that's hard for new players to grasp quickly; just filling your deck with powerful cards might be exciting, but its the synergies and deck plan that really make the difference.

@atlas: I originally included Spellsnatcher, but I found that it feels more like a sideboard card for use against midrange decks and decks that try to go very big. Keeping mana up to flip spell snatcher can be rough and against some decks there is just nothing worth stealing. I don't like Thousand Winds because it is so slow and it is very expensive if you don't manifest it. Not to mention how many creatures have relevant ETB effects in the current standard. If it was an unconditional bounce for all of my opponent's creatures I would use it, but it doesn't even do that most of the time and by the time it bounces anything it is already so late in the game.

I undervalued the Aven too until I played with it a bit. The versatility of the bounce and the efficiency of its face-up mode is really something you have to play with to fully appreciate. There are times when that little bird is the only thing that can get through and when it has a Ghostfire Blade it can go the distance while the rest of your team plays defense. Heir doesn't let you protect your own creatures and while it does stymie some ground-pounders I just prefer the added evasion and tempo. i like Crater's Claws and Stubborn Denial, but this deck's biggest issue is early pressure and both of those cards really don't help on that front. Claws is too slow and it forces you to commit mana on your turn. Denial is great out of the sideboard, but in the first game I doubt your opponent will know which morph creatures need to be killed and which don't. I think that Temur Charm offers enough versatility that I would add added removal like Reality Shift or Wild Slash before adding Claws or Denial.

I prefer Mauler to Stormbreath because it almost always eats a creature or removal spell when it flips. You can still play Mauler face down if you want to and then attack or block with impunity or block with as soon as you have 5 mana. Mauler is a big equalizer and its ability to profitably fight just about every played creature in standard is a huge boon.

I've considered Elvish Mystic and I need to test it out. Jumping up 1 turn on my curve seems strong, but playing a card that dies to everything and ramps me instead of a card that buys me an extra turn seems like a mistake. I would rather play a playset of Wild Slashes or Reality Shifts than Elvish Mystics.

Thanks for the feedback! I plan on doing some more of these since my MTG related writing comes pretty easily to me and its fun to boot!

Hey, if you ever have time (please don't feel obligated to, seriously,I know evaluating MTG stuff can take a lot of time and energy) would you take a look at the deck I'm running and tell me your thoughts?

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dont-worry-im-fine-standard-mardu-sacrifice/

I particularly need some sideboard help. I'm really bad at making sideboards.

@generic_username: I don't see how you would use anger of the gods and end hostilities out of your board. Almost all of your early drops die to anger and the exile effect ruins your recursion. You would really have to board a lot out, even though that card is really good in the abstract. Either you slow play your aggressive stuff or you hurt yourself. Also when would you board in hoardling outburst? Do you have a plan for when you would use it? I'm fine with the other removal in the board, but those 7 cards confuse me as to how you would use them. The rest of the deck looks fine, but very vulnerable to anger of the gods. I would consider more beef in the sideboard to bring in against decks that play anger since it hurts what you are going for so badly.

@thatpinguino: Yeah, that sideboard was pretty much made with stuff I had lying around.

The advice to play around Anger rather than with helps a lot, though. Thanks!

@generic_username: Yeah I've played against a deck that is basically your deck, but with more of a mid-late game bomb focus and I think that you will have real problems with green decks that use hornet queen and whip. Also u/b control with perilous vault. You might want more mardu charms in the sideboard for the instant speed duress effect vs control.

@thatpinguino: Okay, I'll do that.

As far as adding beef goes, I'm thinking of Brimaz and Wingmate Roc for the sideboard? They're a little heavy on white and I'd be taking out non-white cards for them most likely, so I'd have to mess with the manabase a little more, but the manabase isn't perfect anyway. I was thinking 3 Brimaz and 2 Rocs in the board.

And to be honest, the Angers were in there originally out of fear of Hornet Queen, but there have to be less backbreaking ways for me to deal with it than ruining my own game plan but I'm going to use Hushwing Gryff to deal with them instead. And a Bile Blight.

Man, whenever I see people messing around with morph decks, I get retrospectively bummed out that they didn't reprint Muraganda Petroglyphs in M15. I had some drafts with that card and and morphs/tokens on MTGO, and it was super fun.

@Levius: But they did print Trail of Mystery! I'll take lands and blowouts on flips over bigger face-down creatures any day.