Morphing Mind Games

Commander / EDH Casual Control GWU (Bant) Primer Theme/Gimmick

Exxie97

Creature (33)

• 1x Ainok Survivalist
• 1x Alms Collector
• 1x Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Blightsteel Colossus
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Evra, Halcyon Witness
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Hidden Dragonslayer
• 1x Hushbringer
• 1x Hushwing Gryff
• 1x Ixidron
• 1x Jeskai Infiltrator
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Kheru Spellsnatcher
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Magus of the Disk
• 1x Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1x Pygmy Hippo
• 1x Ravenous Slime
• 1x Samurai of the Pale Curtain
• 1x Serra Avatar
• 1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1x Whisperwood Elemental
• 1x Willbender
• 1x Windborn Muse

Land (38)

• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 12x Forest
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 6x Island
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 8x Plains
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tomb of the Spirit Dragon

Sorcery (10)

• 1x All is Dust
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Boundless Realms
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Dusk / Dawn
• 1x Explosive Vegetation
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Wargate

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Asceticism
• 1x Mastery of the Unseen
• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Primordial Mist
• 1x Sylvan Library

Commanders (2)

Instant (7)

• 1x Congregation at Dawn
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fracturing Gust
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation

Artifact (5)

• 1x Meekstone
• 1x Scroll of Fate
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring

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~Unlock the Unknown~

(Click below to see description)

Hello and welcome to my morph/manifest edh deck!

The main goal of this deck is to have fun and play mind games with your opponents by putting unknown, potential threats on the board in the form of face down creatures.

This causal Edh deck wants to get creatures face down (whether they have morph or not). After that you can make big (and potentially lethal) plays that come out of nowhere to catch your opponent off guard, or control your opponents by suggesting that you have a scary face down creature.
(There is nothing more satisfying then un-morphing a Blightsteel Colossus right after they declare no blockers.)

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa is the real commander of the deck, and Thrasios, Triton Hero is in for blue and general support.

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa makes for a strong morph commander as he gives all of your face down 2/2's much needed evasion in the form of pseudo flying. This makes all of your face down creatures potential threats and makes your opponents stay on their toes.

Thrasios, Triton Hero can help get lands and other unwanted cards off the top of the deck to keep it clean for manifesting. He also acts a mana sink if you end up not using mana you left untapped for potential plays.

While this deck does have a few traditional morphing creatures, the main way we get creatures without morph face down on the battlefield is by manifesting them.

The Manifesting Engines

• Whisperwood Elemental is the best manifesting engine because the manifest is free, and can be flipped if accidently manifested.
• Primordial Mist is a very close second allowing the same amount of manifests but also the utility of cashing in the unwanted one.
• Mastery of the Unseen is another great manifesting engine but requires a hefty amount of mana to get it going.
• Jeskai Infiltrator can do a good amount of work due to his evasion he has, and the evasion he gets from Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa
• Scroll of Fate is one of my personal favorites. While it doesn’t provide card advantage, it makes up for it by being the engine with the most mind game potential. It can also essentially flash in creatures if desperately needed.

Another important key to manifesting is top deck manipulation, as it will allow you to pick what you want to manifest.

• Scroll Rack is the best because it allows you the flexibility of manifesting directly from your hand, or the top of your library.
• Sensei's Divining Top is another great option for choosing what you want to manifest.
• Sylvan Library gives a similar amount of control to the top but with added benefit of being able to draw extra cards if absolutely necessary.
• Mirri's Guile. Essentially a spinoff of the library, still an excellent option for top deck manipulation .

The main win condition for this deck is to swing in with face down big creatures. Get these face down. Attack with a seemingly harmless 2/2, then un-morph for massive damage.

The One Hit Wonders

• Blightsteel Colossus. Under almost all circumstances this should one shot a player (Depending on the house rules for infect, by default, 10 poison is required for a kill but some playgroups up it to 15 for commander).
• Serra Avatar is able to one shot somebody as long as you keep your life total above your opponent. More on
  life gain in the Obscured Assistance tab.
• Evra, Halcyon Witness is in the same boat as Serra Avatar. Just note that if you un-morph and then use the ability your opponents will have an opportunity to kill it before damage is dealt leaving you at four life.
• Multani, Maro-Sorcerer is much less likely to one shot but if someone got greedy with card draw he can pull
  it off easily.
• Felidar Sovereign can be a nasty surprise if you maintained your life total. Just un-morph during your
  opponent's end step and win on your upkeep.

Just noting that Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle and Ixidron can't one shot but make excellent beaters with added utility.

Play mind games with your opponents using the power of suggestion to gain leverage over them, remember the goal of this deck is to make your opponents second guess themselves. In order to do this we need threating creatures. Aside from the ones that can outright kill our opponents, the creatures in this deck are disruptors, mainly hatebears. These creatures can be mixed and matched to accommodate your playgroup, the ones included the decklist are meant to encompass the widest range of popular strategies. Notes on some of the intricate creatures are listed below:

Disruptors

• Pygmy Hippo is a super fun card albeit not super strong. If manifested, swing in at an opponent holding up mana to get a nice boost (bonus points for hitting the player playing Kruphix, God of Horizons!). If face up, it forces your opponents to tap out before combat or risk losing it to the evading hippo.
• Shalai, Voice of Plenty is used to protect yourself and your board by un-morphing and fizzling a spell targeted your direction.
• Spellskite is good as a surprise if you can get it face down, stealing auras or eating in removal.
• Kheru Spellsnatcher is a just very nasty creature, you can even mention it out of the blue to make your opponents sweat.
• Willbender. A classic. Redirection on a creature.
• Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is mainly used for safety but can also flash out the hatebears.
• Magus of the Disk, if face down, can function as a 5 mana instant speed board wipe.

This deck also contains some other classic control elements

Control

• Ixidron won't effect your manifested creatures and allows you to re-use
  morph creatures, you also get a nice big creature.
• All Is Dust won't hit your face down creatures because they are colorless.
• Austere Command nice flexible board wipe that might not kill
  everything you have, due to face down creatures having a CMC of zero.
• Dusk/Dawn acts as both a board wipe that won't kill your face down creatures as well as
  recursion for a large chunk of the creatures in this deck.
• Fracturing Gust. This deck doesn’t run a whole lot of artifacts and enchantments so you
  shouldn’t take much of a hit playing this.
• Meekstone just seems like an auto include due to face down creatures being 2/2.

While normally I'm not a big fan of loading up my deck with tutors, they can be quite interesting in this deck. Tutors that reveal the card to your opponents can make the mind games all the more interesting, especially when a card is manifested after you search, causing your opponents to have to dance around or deal with an potentially false threat.

Tutors

• Enlightened Tutor. Mainly for getting a manifesting engine but can also fetch top deck manipulators, or show your opponents the Blightsteel Colossus to give them a scare.
• Wargate is just too good not to include, but doesn't really have any synergy with the deck aside from being able to flash out the hatebears.
• Congregation at Dawn. This is probably my favorite tutor in the deck. It allows you to show three scary creatures and put them on the top in an order unknown to your opponents, after that you can manifest them or just draw them into your hand.
• Long-Term Plans is a tricky little tutor that forces your opponents to pay attention if they want to know if the card you searched for got manifested or not.
• Muddle the Mixture's main target is Mastery of the Unseen, but it can also be used to get a wide verity of other spells depending on what your needs are.
• Drift of Phantasms's main targets are Scroll of Fate or Jeskai Infiltrator.

These are just remaining utility cards and notes on rulings.

Life Gain Cards

Three of the win cons for this deck require us to have a higher than average life total. Because of this I've included a few life gain cards to help out:

• Sphinx's Revelation. Just general card draw and life gain. Main selling point is the instant speed.
• Heliod's Intervention doubles up as solid removal as well as good life gain if needed.
• Tomb of the Spirit Dragon. Is not a great card but I feel it has a place in this deck because face down creatures are colorless.
• Fracturing Gust. Already mentioned, just thought I'd list it here as well due to the life gain attached.
• Mastery of the Unseen. same as above.

Misc. Cards

• Vesuvan Shapeshifter. The best clone for this deck because it allows you to
  reuse flip face up abilities.
• Asceticism. While also protecting your creatures, this card allows for more freedom to attack with a few face down creature when a flyer is on the board.
• A suite of ramp spells was chosen over mana rocks to avoid effects like Collector Ouphe and
  artifact boardwipes.

Notes

• Just a note for a few of the hatebears focusing on state based actions such as Samurai of the Pale Curtain.
  If an opponent sacrifices something as part of a cost you cannot flip up Samurai of the Pale Curtain to have
  the card they just sacrificed get exiled because it has already been put into the graveyard. All permanents
  after the flip will be sent to exile though, and nothing can be done in response to the flip itself as it does not
  use the stack. Just be aware that some cards must be flipped preemptively in order to gain the desired effect.

The following cards are not in the deck list but make fine substitutes if you are on a budget or just plain don’t like some of the cards:

Substitutes

Creatures

• Brine Elemental can lock down the board when combined with Vesuvan Shapeshifter. Just don't expect to make any friends afterwards.
• Copperhoof Vorrac can make a decent beater.
• Drogskol Reaver can be an okay beater with card draw attached.
• Eidolon of Obstruction. Planeswalker hatebear
• Eldrazi Displacer can flip any face down lands or artifacts that you may have manifested.
• Gaddock Teeg. If you need some spell hate.
• Glen Elendra Archmage. Can be a surprise counterspell if manifested.
• Ixidor, Reality Sculptor flip up ability is awesome but the +1/+1 turns off evasion.
• Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. If you need to deal with spell cheaters.
• Marble Titan. Basically a second Meekstone on a stick.
• Mentor of the Meek can be a decent source of card draw if you need it.
• Mischievous Quanar is pretty fun if you can find a place for it.
• Mistcaller. A second Containment Priest if you need one.
• Phyrexian Dreadnought is quite fun but quite pricey
• Platinum Angel. A surprise for that player who tries to combo out.
• Riptide Mangler can sneak in then take the biggest power on the board.
• Shapesharer can sneak in and copy the most threatening creature on the board.
• Sigarda, Host of Herons can stop sacrifice strategies.
• Standard Bearer. A budget Spellskite.
• Stratus Dancer is flavorful countermagic if you want it.
• Sustaining Spirit can save you in a pinch.
• Tajuru Preserver can stop sacrifice strategies.
• Tocatli Honor Guard another ETB hose if you need it.
• Unsettled Mariner can work as protection if you need more.

Enchantments

• Blind Obedience helps slow the game down with the added benefit of lifegain.
• Bower Passage with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa make your creatures only blockable by creatures with reach.
• Brave the Sands can really help against overrun strategies.
• Guardian Project. More card draw, even for your face down creatures since they have to name.
• Soothsaying is good for extra top deck manipulation.

Sorcery

• Slaughter the Strong is an okay option for a boardwipe as your creatures true power is masked while face down.

Instant

• Reality Shift is just some nice flavorful removal.
• Fact or Fiction fits in this deck quite well as it allows for the intentional reveling of information.

Artifacts

• Cursed Totem. More hate on an artifact.
• Mindlock Orb. More hate on an artifact.
• Illusionary Mask is super fun to use and fits the deck perfectly, however, I don’t have a place for it in this current build as it requires some extra support to truly shine.

Planeswalkers

• Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is awesome and defiantly use it if you have it. In my playgroup it draws A LOT of hate hence its abcense from the decklist.

This deck was inspired by Ninja Bob's Rasputin Dreamweaver deck which can be found here.
This is the 2nd iteration of this deck, the old version can be found here.

If you have any suggestions please feel free to share them, they are greatly appreciated.

Top Ranked	Achieved #6 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #5 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.53
Tokens	Manifest 2/2 C, Morph 2/2 C
Folders	wish list, EDH Decks, fun commander decks, Stuff to build, Wicked Commander decks, Paradox, EDH, other people's cool decks, Other Peoples Decks, edh