Introduction I love morph. I've made many morph commander decks over the years, with many different generals like Animar, Brago, and Cromat. And while this Tasigur build isn't the most powerful, it's definitely my favorite. Specifically, I wanted to get away from any combo-style deck. The is the most fair morph deck, with the most morph specific supporting cards, that I've built so far.
Why Tasigur? Tasigur is very close to my ideal morph commander. For me, morph gives you the ability to play mind games with your opponent like no other ability can. Mechanically, there's nothing like it. When playing with Tasigur, the goal is to keep your opponents guessing what the face-down creatures on the battlefield really are. And Tasigur creates many opportunities to play mind games when a creature with morph is returned to your hand from that point, it will always be a question whether or not the next face-down creature is that same creature that was returned.
And then there's delve -- when combined with Timetwister, is the glue that holds the entire deck together.
Is Timetwister necessary? Yes! It reshuffles every morph creature back into your library, keeping the next face-down creature you play a mystery. In reality, people count cards. And for every face-down creature that is turned face-up is another potential creature with morph that your opponents can scratch off their mental checklist -- until you Timetwister and then it begins again. And the longer the game goes on, the more cards Tasigur is exiling from your deck, and your remaining deck becomes an increasingly concentrated stack of creatures with morph, enablers, and high impact cards.
There are 6 other support cards which are essential to the Tasigur/Timetwister engine: Demonic Tutor, Regrowth, Fact or Fiction, Rune-scarred Demon, Eternal Witness, and Sphinx of Uthuun. Note: Fact or Fiction fills your graveyard for Tasigur, and also can force your opponent to choose whether or not to put 1 or more creatures with morph into your hand. If they do, the next face-down creature you play may or may not be that same creature. (This is a theme!)
Morph, Manifest, and Illusionary Mask Morph/Megamorph - 10 creatures might seem a little low, but with Tasigur & Timetwister, 10 creatures is plenty for what this deck is trying to accomplish. I think most of my inclusions are straight forward, but Liege of the Pit and Krosan Cloudscraper were the last additions. I think it's important to at least present the threat that any face-down creature may just kill them outright if they aren't blocked. Without that threat, it becomes very easy to your opponents to declare no blockers every time they're attacked. (The only thing Tasigur is missing is access to Akroma, Angel of Fury, Skirk Alarmist, and Mastery of the Unseen.)
Manifest - Whisperwood Elemental, Wildcall, Ethereal Ambush, and Cloudform turn every card in your deck into a face-down creature. And with Brainstorm, Lim-dul's Vault, and Vampiric Tutor, it makes this mechanic very fun to play.
Illusionary Mask - Illusionary Mask is a card with oracle text that is very different than what is actually printed on the card and it kind of does a lot of work in this deck. First, it lets you cheat out things like Phyrexian Dreadnought and Tempting Wurm. But it also lets you play creatures with morph at a discounted cost and then lets you turn them face-up for zero mana! Skinthinner and Hooded Hydra are happy to flip after being declared as attackers. But other cards like Willbender, Kheru Spellnatcher, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and Stratus Dancer can be flipped on command with either Smuggler's Copter or Staff of Nin. (Creatures played face-down with Illusionary Mask automatically flip face-up whenever they are tapped or would receive damage.) Illusionary Mask is also the reason why Eladamri's Call, Mana Drain, and Black Market are in the deck. They all force mana into your mana pool at the beginning of your pre-combat main phase, and you always have the option of dumping all of it into the next creature you play with the mask. You have 15 charge counters on Black Market? You just tapped 1 island and used all 15 black mana to play a face-down creature with the mask? I wonder what could it be?
Why Tempting Wurm? There is nothing I hate worse in commander than a static game state. Tempting Wurm forces the issue. Thematically, cards like Tempting Wurm, Gilded Drake, Living Death, Blatant Thievery, and Cylonic Rift, and Timetwister are constantly "morphing" the current game state. Have you ever cast Living Death with Tempting Wurm and Gilded Drake in your graveyard? With Ixidron in the graveyard? Have you ever cast Timetwister into Tempting Wurm just to see what would happen?
The truth is that the moment Timetwister became a central card in the deck (and I washing punishing people with Nekusar or anything like that), this deck automatically became a little group-huggy in some ways.
Anyway, this is my latest morph deck. I'll add more onto this thread later with card specific interactions. Very fun to play if you like playing with morph and have no interest in combo. Mana base is kind of basic right now. A lot of room for improvement. I'll also add a section for cards that didn't make the cut.
I love morph. I've made many morph commander decks over the years, with many different generals like Animar, Brago, and Cromat. And while this Tasigur build isn't the most powerful, it's definitely my favorite. Specifically, I wanted to get away from any combo-style deck. The is the most fair morph deck, with the most morph specific supporting cards, that I've built so far.
The Deck
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Morph (10)
1 Bane of the Living
1 Deathmist Raptor
1 Hooded Hydra
1 Kheru Spellsnatcher
1 Krosan Cloudscraper
1 Liege of the Pit
1 Skinthinner
1 Stratus Dancer
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1 Willbender
Other Creatures (15)
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Gilded Drake
1 Tempting Wurm
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Eternal Witness
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Ixidron
1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
1 Whisperwood Elemental
1 Rune-scarred Demon
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Brainstorm
1 Dark Ritual
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Grisly Salvage
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Mana Drain
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ethereal Ambush
Sorcery (12)
1 Careful Study
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mulch
1 Regrowth
1 Tracker's Instincts
1 Timetwister
1 Living Death
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Ghastly Conscription
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Wildcall
Enchantment (7)
1 Eladamri's Vineyard
1 Copy Artifact
1 Secret Plans
1 Trail of Mystery
1 Cloudform
1 Greater Good
1 Black Market
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Illusionary Mask
1 Smuggler's Copter
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Staff of Nin
Non-Basic Land (7)
1 Command Tower
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
Basic Land (28)
12 Forest
12 Island
4 Swamp
Why Tasigur?
Tasigur is very close to my ideal morph commander. For me, morph gives you the ability to play mind games with your opponent like no other ability can. Mechanically, there's nothing like it. When playing with Tasigur, the goal is to keep your opponents guessing what the face-down creatures on the battlefield really are. And Tasigur creates many opportunities to play mind games when a creature with morph is returned to your hand from that point, it will always be a question whether or not the next face-down creature is that same creature that was returned.
And then there's delve -- when combined with Timetwister, is the glue that holds the entire deck together.
Is Timetwister necessary?
Yes! It reshuffles every morph creature back into your library, keeping the next face-down creature you play a mystery. In reality, people count cards. And for every face-down creature that is turned face-up is another potential creature with morph that your opponents can scratch off their mental checklist -- until you Timetwister and then it begins again. And the longer the game goes on, the more cards Tasigur is exiling from your deck, and your remaining deck becomes an increasingly concentrated stack of creatures with morph, enablers, and high impact cards.
There are 6 other support cards which are essential to the Tasigur/Timetwister engine: Demonic Tutor, Regrowth, Fact or Fiction, Rune-scarred Demon, Eternal Witness, and Sphinx of Uthuun. Note: Fact or Fiction fills your graveyard for Tasigur, and also can force your opponent to choose whether or not to put 1 or more creatures with morph into your hand. If they do, the next face-down creature you play may or may not be that same creature. (This is a theme!)
Morph, Manifest, and Illusionary Mask
Morph/Megamorph - 10 creatures might seem a little low, but with Tasigur & Timetwister, 10 creatures is plenty for what this deck is trying to accomplish. I think most of my inclusions are straight forward, but Liege of the Pit and Krosan Cloudscraper were the last additions. I think it's important to at least present the threat that any face-down creature may just kill them outright if they aren't blocked. Without that threat, it becomes very easy to your opponents to declare no blockers every time they're attacked. (The only thing Tasigur is missing is access to Akroma, Angel of Fury, Skirk Alarmist, and Mastery of the Unseen.)
Manifest - Whisperwood Elemental, Wildcall, Ethereal Ambush, and Cloudform turn every card in your deck into a face-down creature. And with Brainstorm, Lim-dul's Vault, and Vampiric Tutor, it makes this mechanic very fun to play.
Illusionary Mask - Illusionary Mask is a card with oracle text that is very different than what is actually printed on the card and it kind of does a lot of work in this deck. First, it lets you cheat out things like Phyrexian Dreadnought and Tempting Wurm. But it also lets you play creatures with morph at a discounted cost and then lets you turn them face-up for zero mana! Skinthinner and Hooded Hydra are happy to flip after being declared as attackers. But other cards like Willbender, Kheru Spellnatcher, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and Stratus Dancer can be flipped on command with either Smuggler's Copter or Staff of Nin. (Creatures played face-down with Illusionary Mask automatically flip face-up whenever they are tapped or would receive damage.) Illusionary Mask is also the reason why Eladamri's Call, Mana Drain, and Black Market are in the deck. They all force mana into your mana pool at the beginning of your pre-combat main phase, and you always have the option of dumping all of it into the next creature you play with the mask. You have 15 charge counters on Black Market? You just tapped 1 island and used all 15 black mana to play a face-down creature with the mask? I wonder what could it be?
Why Tempting Wurm?
There is nothing I hate worse in commander than a static game state. Tempting Wurm forces the issue. Thematically, cards like Tempting Wurm, Gilded Drake, Living Death, Blatant Thievery, and Cylonic Rift, and Timetwister are constantly "morphing" the current game state. Have you ever cast Living Death with Tempting Wurm and Gilded Drake in your graveyard? With Ixidron in the graveyard? Have you ever cast Timetwister into Tempting Wurm just to see what would happen?
The truth is that the moment Timetwister became a central card in the deck (and I washing punishing people with Nekusar or anything like that), this deck automatically became a little group-huggy in some ways.
Anyway, this is my latest morph deck. I'll add more onto this thread later with card specific interactions. Very fun to play if you like playing with morph and have no interest in combo. Mana base is kind of basic right now. A lot of room for improvement. I'll also add a section for cards that didn't make the cut.
Open to criticism/comments/suggestions.
Thread | Draft