Looking for payoff cards for non-creature permanents becoming a creature.
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on March 11, 2025, 12:24 a.m. by keizerbuns
I want to build a vehicle deck and I'm wondering if there are any cards that trigger or benefit in any way from a non-creature permanent becoming a creature. Specifically I'm looking for a payoff for whenever I crew a vehicle.
Does anyone know of any cards that get a payoff from crewing a vehicle/turning a non-creature into a creature?
Thanks in advance!
wallisface says... #4
I don't think there are any cards that care about a card changing type, so I don't think you'll have any luck there.
There will be cards that care about being crewed, but that ability will be on the vehicle itself.
There will also be creatures that care about being tapped (notably recently, from Duskmourn) - seeing as you're creatures will need to tap to crew the vehicles, there could be some useful synergy there, and probably your best-bet at looking for a payoff.
If you have a decklist feel free to chuck it up and get some feedback! My gut feeling is that even if your deck is a "vehicle deck", you probably want to be fairly light on actual vehicles
March 11, 2025 1:14 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #6
You might benefit more from untap effects, as the vehicles are not creatures at that point. I think something like Smoke or Meekstone may be more what you’re thinking of..? Speaking of untapping, as I usually forget about mentioning it, I think Paralyze offers you the opportunity to untap something when it isn’t going to otherwise. It’s expensive (four) and can only happen in your upkeep (not untap phase) but I have been meaning to mention it for over a year. I hope this makes sense, I haven’t had any coffee at this point.
March 11, 2025 9:24 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #8
Oh duh. I’m sorry - my post wasn’t even close on this one!!
March 11, 2025 5:20 p.m.
I'm not sure how competitive you are looking to go with the deck but a few options to look at are:
Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero is probably one of the better creatures to help crew cards since it can replace itself with a new card right away by crewing and then generate more value over time.
Some of the creatures with the Inspired ability like Disciple of Deceit and King Macar, the Gold-Cursed can also net you value, but at a slower pace.
Grimoire Thief is kind of a weird and janky option. It's an unreliable counterspell effect but also gives you the option to slowly exile an opponent's library just by crewing.
Unctus, Grand Metatect is kind of a lord for vehicles and helps you dig through your library. It also synergizes well with the shark pirates from Aetherdrift.
Immersturm Predator can be instant-speed graveyard removal when there is a vehicle available for it to crew.
There are variety of other creatures with "Whenever this creature becomes tapped" effects that you can look up.
March 12, 2025 6:40 a.m.
keizerbuns says... #10
Sorry for the super late reply, I meant to get back to everyone way sooner and then got busy and just forgot.
Thanks wallisface, FormOverFunction, and SaberTech for those suggestions! I don’t know why I didn’t think of using creatures with tap/untap abilities earlier, cause that makes way more sense than trying to find an obscure, one off card with a transforming payoff lol. I have a lot of cards to pour over now, I’m sure I can find something good!
I don’t have a decklist started yet, wallisface, but when I do have something going then I can throw up the decklist here for you to check out if you want.
Thanks again for all the replies and ideas everyone!
April 17, 2025 1:49 a.m. Edited.
keizerbuns says... #11
wallisface, I finally got around to making that vehicle decklist if you want to check it out.
October 10, 2025 6:49 a.m.
wallisface says... #12
keizerbuns looking at your list, I'm skeptical it can keep up at a modern power level:
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Your deck has a LOT of 1-ofs, which is going to make it fairly inconsistent. They all appear to be legendries, so I will say that just because a card is legendary doesn't mean you only run one copy of it - if the card is crucial to your plan then you need to run enough copies to ensure you have good odds of drawing one (so, usually a playset). In any case, i would suggest not running anywhere near this many 1-ofs, especially as a first-draft of a deck that has no reliable way to fetch-up specific cards.
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Your mana curve seems sloooow. This becomes specifically a bigger issue with your interaction, that all costs quite-high mana and either requires some prerequisites to be any good (Collision Course), or costs a big-chunk of mana but can't remove big threats (Unidentified Hovership, Razorgrass Ambush Flip). I really think your deck either needs to be a LOT faster, or have a LOT more density of interaction, with this extra interaction not requiring as many hoops to jump through to be good.
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You have no reliable way to ever get Parhelion II into play. The only card I see that is helpful towards this here is Kona, Rescue Beastie, but that is itself 4 mana (so very slow), and you're only running as a 1-of (so incredibly unreliable).
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Your mana base looks too cute and messy. I would suggest simplifying it for better options and more reliable usefulness. Specifically I don't see Gavony Township, The Shire or Minas Tirith ever being anything except awkward and unhelpful. Temple of Plenty entering tapped is absolutely terrible. Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers and Eiganjo Castle are cute, but you're almost never going to use their abilities, and so basic lands are probably better to avoid auto-losing to Blood Moon effects. The deck really, really wants a playset of both Windswept Heath and a few Temple Garden to keep your mana consistent.
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14 vehicles is a LOT. But i'm more worried that most of them don't really do much... they all feel like bad-creatures that require a bunch of setup to actually do creature-things. I would suggest running less vehicles, but making those vehicles you do run feel properly impactive, so that they can actually win you the game.
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The sideboard needs a LOT of work - it's not really giving you anything helpful at the moment.
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I don't see how this deck ever competes against any combo deck... you have no way to disrupt these decks and are not nearly fast-enough to race them. Decks like Belcher, Storm, Goryo's, Tron, Prime Titan, Neobrand and Broodscale will all just enact their plans and not even glance at what your board-state is doing. Other fast-aggro decks like Boros Energy, Zoo, Affinity, and Prowess will basically do the same. I'd advise looking at the modern meta decks and working out what your plan is against each of these - your brew needs to have a decent chance of winning against at least half the top decks to feel relevant.
Overall the deck feels too unfocused, and lacking both speed and interaction. I would suggest trying to lower the mana curve, get in some good interactive pieces, and adding a bunch of much-needed focus to the deck in-terms of only keeping cards that help achieve your set goal.
A good place to start might be to check out an established list. In Pioneer both Azban Greasefang and Mardu Greasefang are established vehicle decks. Obviously Pioneer is a much weaker format than modern, but this should give you a good idea of what a decent vehicle deck looks like, and might help inspire your own brew (also, a lot of people onine have tried making modern-greasfang lists, so the deck seems to have a few gimmicky-paths towards being somewhat modern-viable)
keizerbuns says... #3
Thanks for the reply Sliverguy420. I would only be running the payoff as a 1 or 2 of anyways, just for a little added spice more than anything since I really only play casually.
Do you know how best to word it to search for that? I've tried searching on both gatherer and scryfall using the phrase "When becomes creature" but that was way too vague and gave me over 500 results.
March 11, 2025 1 a.m.