Behold!! A morph deck with a bunch of monster-sized friends... All of which are far cheaper (or even free) to cast thanks to Animar, Soul of Elements.
THE GAME PLAN: Cast morphs face down to grow Animar's counters, then use his ability to either: A) cast LOTS of morphs for free (saving your mana for unmorphing costs) and/or B) cast the big boys for cheap.
GAME-CHANGING CARDS: Platinum Emperion makes it so you can't lose life...
Breaker of Armies
&
Taunting Elf
makes all your other creatures unblockable for 1 turn... Void Winnower makes it so your opponents can only play/ block with half their spells/ creatures... Vesuvan Shapeshifter &/or Phyrexian Metamorph can each become copies of Animar, making all of your creature-casting abilities doubly powerful (they also serve as backup in case your opponent manages to remove Animar).
TWO IMPORTANT CONCEPTS: 1) Some morph abilities allow you to return creatures to their owner's hands. Unless you need to remove a threat, it's not a bad idea to return your own morph creatures. You'll most likely get to re-cast them immediately for free, which increases Animar's counters/ size. 2) There are lots of draw cards in this deck. Use them. Thanks to Animar's unique ability, Unlike most card-drawing decks you WON'T end up with a hand full of cards you can't afford to cast. Simply put, the more creatures you happen to draw, the more you can cast.
I'm still looking for my first +1 vote. Does anybody read these things? Meanwhile, I'd love any comments/ suggestions you might have (you can see my Maybeboard is huge right now). I'd love to push the synergy here to make it even faster & more powerful, but in playtesting I found that too many monsters makes the likelihood of getting enough morphs to let Animar do his thing very low. I really like the concept of making copies of Animar, but I'm not sure what cards to use for this & of course what cards to take out to make room. Help!?
--You really don't need to read any further. Further reading is for true Magic geeks only--
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING I LIKE TO CALL "THE PERFECT SHUFFLE": The following is a ridiculous but totally possible fun scenario using only 3 basic lands & 6 turns, assuming you draw the perfect card each & every time. Enjoy!
Opening Hand = 1x Forest, 1x Mountain, 1x Island,
Secret Plans
, Rattleclaw Mystic,
Coral Trickster
, and 1 other random morph creature.
Turn 1: draw card-in-hand #8 (oh lookee... it's morph #4)/ play the island/ hand size goes back to 7;
T2: draw card-in-hand #8 (yay... it's morph #5)/ play the forest/ hand size goes back to 7/ tap both lands to cast
Secret Plans
/ hand size drops to 6;
T3: draw card-in-hand #7 (final morph... morph #6)/ play the mountain/ hand size drops to 6/ tap all 3 lands to cast Animar;
T4: draw card-in-hand #7 (time for some fun... it's
Conduit of Ruin
)/ tap all 3 lands & cast Rattleclaw face down (ie: morph#1)/ hand size drops back to 6/ Animar gets counter#1/ if it's safe to do so, attack with Animar for 2 damage;
T5: (pay attention... this is where things get crazy) draw card-in-hand #7 (more fun... it's Cerulean Wisps)/ tap 2 land to unmorph Rattleclaw Mystic/ available land drops to 1/ as per Rattleclaw's text, add 3 mana to your mana pool/ as per Secret Plans text, draw a card (oh joy of joys!! it's Kozilek, Butcher of Truth!!!/ hand size jumps up to 8/ use 2 mana from your pool to cast
Coral Trickster
face down (ie:morph#2)/ mana pool drops to 1/ Animar gets counter#2/ hand size goes back to 7/ use 1 remaining mana in mana pool to cast morph#3/ Animar gets counter#3/ hand size goes to 6/ cast morphs #4, #5, & #6 all for free/ Animar gets counters #4, #5, & #6/ hand size drops to 3/ cast
Conduit of Ruin
for free/ hand size goes to 2/ Animar get counter#7/ as per Conduit's text, search library for
Pilgrim of the Fires
& put it on top of your library/ tap Rattleclaw for blue mana & cast Cerulean Wisps, targeting Rattleclaw/ hand size drops to 1/ as per Wisps text, unap Rattleclaw & draw Pilgrim from the top of your library/ hand size bumps up to 2/ cast Pilgrim for free/ hand size drops back to 1/ Animar gets counter #8/ tap remaining land & Rattleclaw for 2 mana & cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth/ hand is emptied/ Animar gets counter #9/ as per Kozilek's text, draw cards-in-hand #1-4 (most fun of all! They are: Platinum Emperion, Ulamog's Crusher, Desolation Twin, & Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/ cast Emperion & Crusher for free/ hand size drops back to 2/ Animar gets counters #10 & #11/ cast D-Twin & Ulamog for free/ Animar gets counters#12 & #13/ as per D-Twin's text, put token copy of him on board (Animar does NOT get a counter here since you didn't "cast" this creature)/ as per Ulamog's text, destroy target permanent that's been bothering you/ finally, if safe to do so, attack with Animar for 14;
T6: draw card-in-hand #1 (it's Temur Ascendancy/ tap all 3 mana to cast Ascendancy/ tap Rattleclaw to unmorph
Coral Trickster
/ as Trickster's text, untap Rattleclaw/ as per Secret Plans text, draw a card (well imagine my luck... it's
Breaker of Armies
!)/ cast Breaker for free/ Animar gets counter#15/ as per Temur Ascendancy text, draw a card (it's Void Winnower)/ cast Void for free/ Animar gets counter#16/ as per Ascendancy, draw another card (it's It That Betrays)/ Cast Betrays for free/ Animar gets counter #17/ as per Ascendancy, draw another card (it's
Retraction Helix
)/ tap Rattleclaw for 1 blue mana/ cast Helix & target Desolation Twin/ tap D-Twin to use Helix ability & target D-Twin, returning it to your hand/ cast D-Twin again, for free/ Animar gets counter #18/ as per Ascendancy, draw another card (it's
Darksteel Gargoyle
)/ as per D-Twin's text, put another copy of D-Twin on the board/ cast Gargoyle for free/ Animar gets counter #19/ ...AND FINALLY!!... ATTACK!!!/ as per Temur Ascendancy, all the new guys have haste/ as per the Annihilate text on Crusher(x2), Betrays (x2), Kozilek(x4), & Ulamog(x4), your opponent will be forced to sacrifice 12 permanents AND as per the text on Betrays, you now control all non-tokens that were sacrificed this way/ as per
Breaker of Armies
, all opponent's creatures must block him & him only, meaning that all of your other creatures will go through untouched... which amounts to the following: Trickster (2), morphs #3 thru #6 (2 each... 10 total), Conduit (5), Pilgrim (6), Kozilek (12), Platinum (8), Crusher (8), D-Twin's token copy #1 (10), Ulamog (10), Breaker is blocked so (0), Void (11), Betrays (11), D-Twin (10), D-Twin's token copy #2 (10), Gargoyle (3), and finally Animar (20)... For a grand total of 136 damage.
Did I make a mistake? Is there a way I can make this even more insane? (Remember: it's the perfect shuffle. Anything goes, though I'd like to keep the total cost for this deck under $150)
Thanks, and have fun!
