Favor of the Mighty provides creatures with one of the best effects in Magic - Protection from All Colors. But unfortunately it's ridiculously hard to take full advantage of the effect, and it can even work against your favor. This is my attempt to make a cohesive, elegant deck around the card.
The deck conceptualizes around Morph creatures and Favor of the Mighty. Although Morph creatures have a converted mana cost of 0 and therefore will not receive protection if your opponent has a creature out, they can still block as they don't have a color. Additionally, they make for great surprises with Favor of the Mighty. An opponent who may have thought he was attacking with protected creatures will suddenly find himself facing a fully protected horde.
Card Choices/Explanations:
Weathered Bodyguards - A very underused card in Magic now is a cornerstone of this deck. Provides a semi-lock with Favor of the Mighty as long as your opponent doesn't play creatures with CMC>6. Cheat it into play early with Morph.
Razor Golem - 3/4 Vigilance usually played for 3 mana. Solid for offense/defense, especially since its CMC6 works so well with Favor of the Mighty.
Glimmerpoint Stag - Another great defender with Vigilance. This one takes advantage of Morph creatures by temporarily exiling them, and returning them face-up. I debated this card vs Flickerwisp, but I chose this for the additional defense.
Steel Hellkite - solid alternative finisher, colorless so it can defend against opponent when Favor of the Mighty is working against us, great effect.
Tariff - Great early game card, as it works around Morph's CMC=0. Late-game, it's a non-targeting removal spell against your opponent's highest CMC creature, should Favor of the Mighty be working against you.
Voyager Staff - cheap early play to exile Morphers, save creatures on the fly, or temporarily remove opposing creatures even when they're protected by Favor of the Mighty. Combined with Brittle Effigy, it's the colorless removal suite.
Deck Fixes/Suggestions:
Yet again, this is just another concept deck with no testing done yet. Still, even without testing I feel like there can be improvements made, and I'd like to hear your opinions on the deck.
So far, I feel like it could potentially benefit from Mana-Accel on Turn 2 (although there's really nothing to ramp to on Turn 3), and I think it could really use some card draw - although White doesn't really have card draw.
I intentionally designed the deck so it's not completely dependant on Favor of the Mighty - it can simply work as Mono-White Aggro-control for a while, but it certainly does benefit from the Favor. Also, I didn't put in any tutors like Enlightened Tutor which would really benefit the deck due to price. While Idyllic Tutor is an alternative, the mana-cost is just awkward for the deck.
Very interesting. I put my janky Ixidron morph deck up this week so this caught my eye.
Favor of the Mighty huh. Forgot that existed.
Let's see...
- Favor and mostly high cost critters including a lock engine with Bodyguards is pretty cool. Since many share the same cost you get more protected critters.
- Morphs are stupid expensive. Might look into ramp or morph helpers or more cheats...
a. ramp - UW Signet, Mind Stone, Everflowing Chalice, Gold Myr, Guardian Idol, Thunder Totem, Tooth of Ramos - some of the cheaper ones I've used.
b. Morph helpers - Dream Chisel - more things you play face up, worse this is.... T2 drop though.
c. Cheatz - Momentary Blink, Turn to Mist, Ghostway, Galepowder Mage, Flickerwisp - You might not like these since you wanted colorless / non-targeted removal. Ghostway is rather fun to exile your whole force of several down morphs, but is expensive. Blink is great but you would have to add some blue mana in you base.
Tariff looks viable here, never personally played it.
Sorry I just threw some stuff here. I guess we'll have to know how it plays before specific suggestions. Let us know.
I was sampling through some hands on mtgdeckbuilder.com, and so far it's not bad at all. But a lot of times when I morphed on Turn 3, the turn 4 land drop wasn't as consistent as I'd liked. There were times when Voyager Staff would solve that problem, but now I'm thinking Flickerwisp may be useful than Glimmerpoint Stag because of the mana problem. I might go for a 2/2 split with Flickerwisp/Stag.
As far as morph cheating goes, I've been satisfied with 6 cheaters so far - the cost to Morph is only 4 mana, and while I could use that mana in better ways, (i.e. use Glimmerpoint Stag instead), I think 6 is the max I can fit in at the moment. If I don't draw into the blinkers, then I can unmorph them the normal way, which isn't terrible.
21 Plains
2 Mystifying Maze
Creatures 20
4 Weathered Bodyguards
4 Exalted Angel
2 Daru Lancer
4 Razor Golem
4 Glimmerpoint Stag
2 Steel Hellkite
4 Shining Shoal
4 Harm's Way
2 Tariff
Artifacts/Enchantments 7
4 Favor of the Mighty
2 Voyager Staff
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Brittle Effigy
2 Planar Guide
2 Flickerwisp
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
2 Lumithread Field
2 Judge Unworthy
2 Lightmine Field
1 Duskrider Peregrine
1 Ironfist Crusher
The deck conceptualizes around Morph creatures and Favor of the Mighty. Although Morph creatures have a converted mana cost of 0 and therefore will not receive protection if your opponent has a creature out, they can still block as they don't have a color. Additionally, they make for great surprises with Favor of the Mighty. An opponent who may have thought he was attacking with protected creatures will suddenly find himself facing a fully protected horde.
Card Choices/Explanations:
Weathered Bodyguards - A very underused card in Magic now is a cornerstone of this deck. Provides a semi-lock with Favor of the Mighty as long as your opponent doesn't play creatures with CMC>6. Cheat it into play early with Morph.
Exalted Angel, Daru Lancer - more Morph goodness. Additionally, they all have the same CMC of 6 with Weathered Bodyguards. This is important as it allows them to share the Favor of the Mighty effect.
Razor Golem - 3/4 Vigilance usually played for 3 mana. Solid for offense/defense, especially since its CMC6 works so well with Favor of the Mighty.
Glimmerpoint Stag - Another great defender with Vigilance. This one takes advantage of Morph creatures by temporarily exiling them, and returning them face-up. I debated this card vs Flickerwisp, but I chose this for the additional defense.
Steel Hellkite - solid alternative finisher, colorless so it can defend against opponent when Favor of the Mighty is working against us, great effect.
Shining Shoal, Harm's Way - The Shoal is just way too good when combined with Weathered Bodyguards. Considering the high CMC of the deck, the Shoal seems perfect. Harm's Way works great as early, cheap defense.
Tariff - Great early game card, as it works around Morph's CMC=0. Late-game, it's a non-targeting removal spell against your opponent's highest CMC creature, should Favor of the Mighty be working against you.
Voyager Staff - cheap early play to exile Morphers, save creatures on the fly, or temporarily remove opposing creatures even when they're protected by Favor of the Mighty. Combined with Brittle Effigy, it's the colorless removal suite.
Deck Fixes/Suggestions:
Yet again, this is just another concept deck with no testing done yet. Still, even without testing I feel like there can be improvements made, and I'd like to hear your opinions on the deck.
So far, I feel like it could potentially benefit from Mana-Accel on Turn 2 (although there's really nothing to ramp to on Turn 3), and I think it could really use some card draw - although White doesn't really have card draw.
I intentionally designed the deck so it's not completely dependant on Favor of the Mighty - it can simply work as Mono-White Aggro-control for a while, but it certainly does benefit from the Favor. Also, I didn't put in any tutors like Enlightened Tutor which would really benefit the deck due to price. While Idyllic Tutor is an alternative, the mana-cost is just awkward for the deck.
Lastly, I would like to keep the removal in the deck non-targeting, like Tariff or colorless like Brittle Effigy, unless it also has dual functions like Shining Shoal. So please don't suggest something like Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.
Thank you for reading all of that I know it's like reading an essay every time I post, but I want to clarify everything.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
Favor of the Mighty huh. Forgot that existed.
Let's see...
- Favor and mostly high cost critters including a lock engine with Bodyguards is pretty cool. Since many share the same cost you get more protected critters.
- Morphs are stupid expensive. Might look into ramp or morph helpers or more cheats...
a. ramp - UW Signet, Mind Stone, Everflowing Chalice, Gold Myr, Guardian Idol, Thunder Totem, Tooth of Ramos - some of the cheaper ones I've used.
b. Morph helpers - Dream Chisel - more things you play face up, worse this is.... T2 drop though.
c. Cheatz - Momentary Blink, Turn to Mist, Ghostway, Galepowder Mage, Flickerwisp - You might not like these since you wanted colorless / non-targeted removal. Ghostway is rather fun to exile your whole force of several down morphs, but is expensive. Blink is great but you would have to add some blue mana in you base.
Tariff looks viable here, never personally played it.
Sorry I just threw some stuff here. I guess we'll have to know how it plays before specific suggestions. Let us know.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=4557651&postcount=1
TheWarden's Creative Commons Music Pick Project (Retired):
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=336498
As far as morph cheating goes, I've been satisfied with 6 cheaters so far - the cost to Morph is only 4 mana, and while I could use that mana in better ways, (i.e. use Glimmerpoint Stag instead), I think 6 is the max I can fit in at the moment. If I don't draw into the blinkers, then I can unmorph them the normal way, which isn't terrible.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus