Introduction

I've been a fan of the morph mechanic for quite a while. I started playing MtG during the Khans block, which is a set near and dear to my heart. Morph was one of the headline mechanics in that set which caught my attention with it's unique abilities stapled onto creatures. I didn't attempt to build an EDH deck around it until I saw a cool list online with Animar at the helm. I built my own version of Animorphs and was very impressed with the results. Even as a "fair" way to play Animar, it became clear very early on that once the deck gains some momentum, it's nearly impossible to stop. While the deck was enjoyable, it was a bit too aggressive for my tastes and I didn't like how all-in the strategy seemed. Soon after, the Commander 2019 decklists were announced and after seeing Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer as the premier new Morph commander, I knew I had found my new deck.

You Might Like This Deck If:

-You like playing unique creatures that have cool abilities.

-You enjoy making your opponents nervous with all of the unknown morph creatures on your side of the board.

-You like highly interactive games.

-You think morph decks can win without the Pickle Lock combo.

You May Not Like This Deck If:

-You would rather your deck not revolve around your commander.

-You prefer less complex strategies.

-You prefer a more aggressive style of play.

-Your meta runs a lot of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

How the Deck Plays

Ideal opening hand should contain some lands, turn 2 or 3 ramp, and a morph creature or two. The idea is to cast Kadena as soon as you can in order to get your morph engine online. Hopefully once she is out, we can cast a free morph each of our turns which will cantrip us into more morphs. Mid-game is all about protecting our engine while deploying more morph creatures on the field which can answer a variety of threats. It's about this point where you should start to outpace your opponents with your incremental value and card draw until finally you can use your win-cons to close the game out.

Card Choices

Creatures

Ainok Survivalist: A cheap Naturalize effect stapled to a morph creature. We've got access to great removal options in the Sultai colors. Simple but effective.

Den Protector: A cheaper Eternal Witness if we cast it for free with Kadena, and slightly bigger too when it flips.

Hooded Hydra: A great mana dump in the late game, or a guaranteed 5/5 when it flips with some added boardwipe protection.

Icefeather Aven: Instant speed bound trick which can remove a troublesome creature in a pinch but most cases will save Kadena from a removal spell or will bounce another morph creature so we can cast it again and reuse it's effect.

Kadena's Silencer: A really cool new morph creature from Commander 2019. Being able to counter a stack of triggered or activated abilities can come in really handy against the right decks.

Sakura-Tribe Elder: My boy Steve, will rarely leave home without him if I'm playing green. A turn 2 ramp staple.

Skinthinner: Pricy creature removal. Not very impressive, would probably swap out with a different card, but running it to keep a critical mass of morph cards.

Stratus Dancer: Negate on a flying body. Feels really good to have this out on the board as an uncounterable answer.

Voidmage Prodigy: Usually will just sac himself to act as a Counterspell but there is a fair number of Wizards in the deck so you can get repeated use out of him. A great rattlesnake card once it's flipped.

Willbender: A card so good, people will run it in non-morph decks. A very versatile piece of interaction.

Champion of Lambholt: One of our finishers. Casting morphs for free tends to grow the Champion quickly so you'll be able to smash face fairly quickly without worrying about blocks from your opponent.

Deathmist Raptor: Hard to deal with rattlesnake that keeps coming back.

Dulcet Sirens: A great politics/dissuasion tool. Staring down a scary Voltron commander? Send it at another poor sucker.

Grim Haruspex: Replaces any of our creatures that die with more cards. Great to have when a boardwipe goes off.

Wood Elves: Grabs an untapped Forest land for us. Great for color fixing, will usually grab a shock or triome with this.

Bane of the Living: Sometimes you need a boardwipe and this guy gets around indestructible and regenerate effects.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress: Synergizes beautifully with all of the 2/2 morphs coming down. Can grow our smaller value creatures into big threats quickly.

Kheru Spellsnatcher: I love Spelljack effects. Cracked this card back in a Khans fatpack and it is super sweet in this deck. Can yoink an opponent's win-con and turn it into our own.

Nantuko Vigilante: Another Naturalize effect. Redundancy is nice to have in a singleton format.

Thelonite Hermit: A mini army in a can. Will use him to deploy a bunch of chump blockers quickly.

Chromeshell Crab: For those of you who can't afford a Guilded Drake, this is your guy. Often will use him to nab value creatures or opposing commanders.

Ixidron: The best board wipe in this deck. Flips every creature into a 2/2 which we can leverage to our advantage since we can re-morph most of our own creatures while leaving our opponents' creatures without their abilities.

Mischievous Quanar: Twincast effects I feel are super underrated in EDH. Copy any expensive haymaker spell or giant draw spell and enjoy the benefits! You can also flip this guy over again to reuse his ability.

Seedborn Muse: Busted card normally, crazy with Kadena. Lets us have immediate access to our mana so we can pay morphing costs the next turn if needed. This card becomes insane paired with a Flash enabler.

Vesuvan Shapeshifter: I'm a sucker for Clone effects and this guy pairs beautifully with our morph creatures since we'll get any morph effect off the creature we choose to copy when we flip him. This is half of the Pickle Lock Brine Elemental + Vesuvan Shapeshifter which we are not running but is a route you can choose if you want to increase the deck's power level.

Whisperwood Elemental: A bulk mythic from Fate Reforged that is right at home in this deck. Manifest creatures still draw us a card with Kadena out and the elemental serves as some nice boardwipe insurance.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide: The master of recursion. I'm sure people are sick of seeing this guy but we run a high permanent count so he is well worth the inclusion.

Pathbreaker Ibex: A great finisher. Deck could also run Craterhoof Behemoth but I found I preferred the repeatable buff each turn that the Ibex provided. Best to flash this guy in before your turn.

Sagu Mauler: Just a big beater that's hard to deal with and can ambush an unsuspecting attacker.

Temur War Shaman: Brings along a manifest friend and turns our morphs into optional fight spells. Great for picking off value creatures.

Thousand Winds: Usually will use as a pseudo AEtherize but it has it's other uses as well.

Thieving Amalgam: New card from Commander 2019. He has a cool effect which in theory can let you play with your opponents cards but honestly I don't think this is the deck for him.

Tishana, Voice of Thunder: Sometimes you just need to reload your hand after we've deployed all of our morphs and Tishana is up for job. We also tend to end up with a lot of cards in our hand during the late game so the no max hand size is really handy.

Spells

Farseek: Turn 2 ramp so we can have Kadena out by turn 3. Can grab our dual lands or triome.

Golgari Charm: Modular spell that's great for clearing out opposing tokens or saving our board from a wipe.

Rampant Growth: Cheap ramp that grabs a basic.

Reality Shift: Really cool blue exile spell that most people don't see coming.

Simic Charm: The mass hexproof is usually the most relevant but I have used it to save certain creatures from a board wipe.

Beast Within: Flexible, hard to beat removal.

Cultivate: A bit on the upper end of our ramp curve but grabbing 2 lands for us keeps us fueled for our mana-hungry morph costs.

Read the Bones: A classic black draw spell. Painful Truths is another great option.

Overwhelming Stampede: This deck wins through combat damage so you want redundancy when it comes to your win-cons.

Flood of Tears: My favorite board bounce since most times it will leave you with a permanent on the board. Most cases we will bounce the board, replay Kadena, and cast a morph creature.

Artifacts

Dimir Signet + Golgari Signet + Simic Signet + Talisman of Curiosity: More 2 drop ramp for us to get Kadena online often and early.

Swiftfoot Boots: Mainly here to protect Kadena but can be used to protect other creatures or enable a Pathbreaker Ibex the turn it comes down.

Chromatic Lantern: Color fixing in 3 color decks makes our life a whole lot easier, especially when the morph costs can be color intensive.

Crystal Shard: An engine piece that lets us bounce our morph creatures so we can recast them and use their morph effects again.

Scroll of Fate: Really fun card in this deck. Worst case we manifest an extra land in our hand or best case we manifest a morph card at instant speed and flip it to mess with our opponents.

Mystic Forge: Morph cards count as colorless creatures when they are cast as morphs so this is great card advantage for us.

Vedalken Orrery: The way Kadena is worded lets us play a morph creature for free each turn. We still have to obey timing rules for creatures, but if we have a flash enabler out, we can in theory play 4 morph creatures for free each turn cycle.

Enchantments

Phyrexian Reclamation: Cheap reusable recursion to get our creatures back to our hand.

Cryptolith Rite: Turns our creatures into mana dorks.

Secret Plans: A bit underwhelming but makes our morphs a bit better at blocking and draws us cards when they flip.

Trail of Mystery: Thins our deck of lands and can buff our creatures for surprise blocks.

Guardian Project: Morph creatures do not share a name so you'll draw cards off of this whenever a morph is played.

Leyline of Anticipation: Flash is busted

Wilderness Reclamation: The former scourge of standard has a home here. Great for when you tap out to play creatures then untap to activate morph costs on the next turn.

Gift of Doom: A surprise protection spell for any creature. Usually attaches to Kadena.

Zendikar Resurgent: If you last a turn cycle with this thing out, you're probably gonna win. Double mana and card draw on one enchantment means we're almost never gonna run out of gas.

Lands

Alchemist's Refuge: A backup flash enabler in case my other two get destroyed.

Bojuka Bog: Got to bring that graveyard hate.

Zoetic Cavern: An extra morph for us that can double as a land!

Conclusion

This deck was a ton of fun to craft, modify and pilot. The Sultai colors give us a super resilient shell with a bunch of interaction. It's so much fun to keep your opponents guessing with the face-down morphs on the table. I have recently disassembled it to clear up some cards for other projects but I wanted to document the final decklist to hopefully encourage others to try Morphs out!

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93% Casual

Competitive

Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

47 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

15 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.51
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Experience Token, Manifest 2/2 C, Morph 2/2 C, Saproling 1/1 G, Snake 1/1 G
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