Has anyone else been testing with Whispers/Manamorphose? I've been tinkering with a 4-color list splashing blue and have found that both cards are just bananas. I still need a lot more games to be comfortable knowing when and what number to side out, but adding those cards as well as dropping LoTV and going to 17 lands has made the deck feel super smooth. I find myself getting early delirium very consistently, and something like T1 Thoughtseize/Push followed by T2 Whispers normally leads to a steamroll. I'd love to hear other opinions or about other experiences with this!
-1 dreadbore
+1 dismember
Jace isnt as good as we thought he would be. 1 Dreadbore is enaugh.
Dismember to be more agressive with DS and grow it at instant speed. I like that.
SB changed a bit more. No more blood moon. Magus is enaugh against eldrazi/tron.
I really enjoy 2 temur battlerage / 1 ghor split.
I would say golgari charm has been the MVP in most of my matchup. (when it's good).
The list grind so much. It's amazing;
In the games we dont need to grind, I just sb out Kcommand and BBE then I race.
Always play to make your oponent make mistake.
I often keep Street Wraith a long time (when I dont need to draw absolutly) Then I do my possible to put a 2/2 DS
It gets alot value to kill creature and dodge removal at instant speed.
Cascading into EE is just the worst, why do you run it? Anger seems better right now.
Has anyone else been testing with Whispers/Manamorphose? I've been tinkering with a 4-color list splashing blue and have found that both cards are just bananas. I still need a lot more games to be comfortable knowing when and what number to side out, but adding those cards as well as dropping LoTV and going to 17 lands has made the deck feel super smooth. I find myself getting early delirium very consistently, and something like T1 Thoughtseize/Push followed by T2 Whispers normally leads to a steamroll. I'd love to hear other opinions or about other experiences with this!
I've been trying a few different builds lately:
- a Manamorphose/Whispers build similar to the one posted here that Jeff Hoogland 5-0'ed with
- a normal Manamorphose list similar to the one Spooly 5-0ed with a couple weeks ago
- a B/R base build running 4 Faithless Looting and no Manamorphose
- a 5-color list like the ones from late last year, because Lingering Souls seems good right now
I'm also trying to figure out a 5-color list that doesn't run a land in the sideboard, because it seems like Manamorphose can help smooth that out a bit. I've really just been throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Those all sound solid, and the Faithless Looting list is really sweet in particular, I haven't tried that yet. Which versions have impressed you the most? I tried Spooly's list, and while it was pretty good I missed having at least one Grim Flayer and a Bolt. I'm thinking 2-3 Manamorphose is the sweet spot, and 2 Whispers seems to be just enough too. Lingering Souls is fantastic in a lot of matchups, but I did pretty poorly at an IQ recently with a 5-color list running those where my opponents either grinded me out anyway, or had an answer like EE/Anger (playing Burn 4 times after cutting some of the Blue didn't help either). The card has won me many games and seems good against Humans/Hollow one, but along with LoTV, it's a grindy 3 drop and I'm not sure that's what the deck excels at or really wants right now.
I did poorly with the Hoogland list, but I think that's more because I had to make budget concessions (Lilianas and EEs). The shell of the deck was really sweet, and is very close to a list I was working on in the fall. Eventually I'll pick up the missing staples, and I'd like to revisit it then.
The normal Manamorphose list was exactly what you'd expect, and did prompt me to pick up a set of Manamorphose in paper. The 5-color list also wasn't surprising one way or another, and after playing with the other lists it was nice to have access to Lingering Souls.
The Faithless Looting list is the one I've been putting the most effort into, because it's the least explored, in general. I was inspired by a Youtube video by a guy named Dylan Hovey, where he played a B/R (splashing Traverse and Lingering Souls in the board) list with Young Pyromancer and Bedlam Reveler instead of Goyf, and a playset of Faithless Looting. While the Young Pyros were okay, the cards that impressed me the most were Bedlam Reveler and Faithless Looting. Having access to the extra filtering was really key in not running out of steam, and alongside cards like Reveler and Souls it was really able to leverage it's graveyard as a card advantage engine in grindier matchups. Watching the way that Mardu Pyromancer can churn through it's deck with Looting and Reveler also made me want to explore then in Death's Shadow.
I'm still working my way through my first league with the deck, and working out some serious kinks in the balancing of my mana base and color requirements, but it's showing real promise so far. The biggest downside is that I'm not running blue, and I'm really feeling the loss of Stubborn Denial. Once I get the current manabase smoothed out I want to look at how to incorporate blue, and my gut says that I'll end up playing a couple of Manamorphose by the end.
It's extremely "work in progress" and I wanted to try some random stuff in the sideboard to try to get more value out of Faithless Looting, but this is what I'm currently testing:
I think that the Flayer is unnecessary and the maindeck Reveler may not want to be there, either. The Abrupt Decays are putting a little too much strain on the mana base, and notably can't be cast off of the basic mountain. If I were to try to squeeze the blue into the deck, I'd probably look at cutting the Flayer, Reveler, Decays, and an Inquisition for some combination of Manamorphose and Stubborn Denial.
Flayer doesn't feel great right now with all the Bolts and fatties running around. I might be wrong but I'd rather have the consistency of the full Manamorphose and Inquisition playset instead. The former especially has just been outstanding for me lately. Props to Spooly for that.
Flayer doesn't feel great right now with all the Bolts and fatties running around. I might be wrong but I'd rather have the consistency of the full Manamorphose and Inquisition playset instead. The former especially has just been outstanding for me lately. Props to Spooly for that.
Has anyone else been testing with Whispers/Manamorphose? I've been tinkering with a 4-color list splashing blue and have found that both cards are just bananas. I still need a lot more games to be comfortable knowing when and what number to side out, but adding those cards as well as dropping LoTV and going to 17 lands has made the deck feel super smooth. I find myself getting early delirium very consistently, and something like T1 Thoughtseize/Push followed by T2 Whispers normally leads to a steamroll. I'd love to hear other opinions or about other experiences with this!
After the success of my sultai whisper deck ( one time on steam i will admits, but localy has been pulling work), i will be trying to be playing a 4c version with manamorophose. http://www.metamox.com/deck/modern-jund-death-s-shadow/201703/ note: IoK can and will be replaced by Whisper in the list.
Might be awhile before i can tested it fully tho, having too much fun with Titi blue moon control in modern.
Flayer doesn't feel great right now with all the Bolts and fatties running around. I might be wrong but I'd rather have the consistency of the full Manamorphose and Inquisition playset instead. The former especially has just been outstanding for me lately. Props to Spooly for that.
For those playing the deck with BBEs without any colour splashes; what do you think of the lists played a year ago with a single mainboard Godless Shrine (perhaps instead of the mountain) and four Lingering Souls plus and/or Ranger of Eos in the sideboard?
These lists were running rampant a year ago and I don't see why they would not work right now. I'd love to tutor silver bullets with Ulvenwald or BBE into Lingering Souls.
It could probably work. But I play 4 BBE and 4 Kcommand. I grind better than most deck;; I don't think the deck needs
to use more slot to grind with Lingering souls. Eidolon of Rhetoric and/or Kataki seems good options tho.
My main answer to tron and valakut are of course ''TBR and GHOR'' but Magus helps too in these matchup; I would
have to give up on him. Because splashing white means I wont play wooded foothills. I'll play MarshFlat.
Basic Green will be harder to get. (we still can traverse into it tho.
After the success of my sultai whisper deck ( one time on steam i will admits, but localy has been pulling work), i will be trying to be playing a 4c version with manamorophose. http://www.metamox.com/deck/modern-jund-death-s-shadow/201703/ note: IoK can and will be replaced by Whisper in the list.
Might be awhile before i can tested it fully tho, having too much fun with Titi blue moon control in modern.
Been playing nearly exact same list minus SB for a little while; - 1 push + 1 dismember, and -3 IoK for 2 whispers and a tarfire. Also running a Stomping ground instead of 2 tombs.
I took it to SCG Cincinatti, but our team had some insanely bad luck in the early rounds. (And let's be real, I punted once or twice). I didn't play the classic day two, but did well in smaller side events.
It's pretty similar to every list I've talked about here in the past few months, but I think it's worth reiterating the main points: Manamorphose is insane, play this as a combo deck first and a midrange deck second, hope to dodge Jund. The only things I would really consider changing are SB slots. I've seen people cutting a removal spell for a Stub, which doesn't seem great given how well Humans and Hollow One are doing right now. It might be worth revisiting the removal mix though - do we need more ways to kill Hollow One / Gurmag Angler? A friend of mine shaved a couple removal spells for LotV, which in principle does this, but in practice Bloodghast and Flamewake Phoenix are a problem.
As far as the SB slots, your local metagame may vary, but for the broader (MTGO, SCG) metagame, the main slots I would toy with are the Pulse and the Snapcaster. Spellbomb is much needed graveyard hate in a lot of matchups (Hollow One, Dredge, Pyromancer), and can replace a couple Street Wraith when you don't want that many ways to hurt yourself, but you can't cut too many cantrips or you'll never hit land drops (e.g. vs. UWR, Pyromancer). Abrade is really good against Humans, good against Hollow One, and gives you artifact hate where that matters (Affinity, Eggs, Lantern). Lavamancer is needed vs. Humans and great in a lot of other spots (Death and Taxes variants, Counters Company, etc). It's often too slow in other aggro matchups, but often still worth bringing in - e.g. I've died to Elves with an active Lavaman before because of Shaman of the Pack. Delay is way better than Disdainful Stroke. The downside is rare, and the upside is that you get to counter Chalice, O Stone, Relic, removal spells, counterspells, 3 mana Gideon, Scrap Trawler, Ensnaring Bridge. Also, note that putting a Bridge or Trawler on suspend is WAY better than putting it in the opponent's graveyard, given stuff like Academy Ruins, Myr Retriever, etc. Fulminator is basically hate for the big mana decks, since it's an easy way to get percentage points against the metagame. It also tends to come in against decks with man lands, especially Uxy control decks since you don't want to leave in removal. Remember you can Traverse for Fulminator so you effectively have more. Hazoret is token grindy card number 1, and it's really good at its job - killing Jaces. But it can also steal games against basically any midrange/control deck. Note that UWx control decks typically have Path + Purge, so pick your spots. Snapcaster is token grindy card number 2, and it's less good, but sometimes it's a sweet traverse target. Pulse is token grindy card number 3 that also happens to kill problematic permanents like Gurmag Angler, Hollow One, Ensnaring Bridge, Worship, Ethereal Armor, planeswalkers, etc. It's a catch all, which is nice, but it's not typically very high impact.
Options to replace Snap / Pulse with: Liliana, the Last Hope, Izzet Staticaster, 2nd Grim Lavamancer, Lightning Bolt (more humans hate), The Scarab God (I know, I know, but just maybe.....), 3rd Temur Battle Rage, Liliana of the Veil, Kolaghan's Command, etc. Just spitballin' here.
@Spooly, how do you approach sideboarding with Manamorphose? Do you ever side the card out, and if so, how does the deck cope with inconsistency g2/3 given the deck only plays 17 lands?
Given that humans is close to tier 0.5 currently, I imagine Thalia is a card you see a decent amount of times. And I can't imagine you want Manamorphose against these kind of decks postboard.
@Spooly, how do you approach sideboarding with Manamorphose? Do you ever side the card out, and if so, how does the deck cope with inconsistency g2/3 given the deck only plays 17 lands?
Given that humans is close to tier 0.5 currently, I imagine Thalia is a card you see a decent amount of times. And I can't imagine you want Manamorphose against these kind of decks postboard.
It's hard to cut Manamorphose for mana conisistency reasons, like you say, but by the time we can cast them we already have 2 lands in play. So Morphose at best finds you your 3rd land or fixes some color issues on a key turn. So it doesn't hurt too much to shave 1-2 against Thalia decks. The problem is that every Thalia deck that isn't Humans is a Taxes variant, and Morphose is key for fighting through mana denial - both to hit extra land drops to insulate against the land destruction, and to cast key spells when they try to color screw you. So I wouldn't cut any Morphose against Taxes variants, despite Thalia. Against both decks we load up on removal postboard anyway, so it isn't too hard to kill Thalia EOT, then untap and unload all of the Manamorphoses stuck in your hand. Taxes, at least, doesn't kill too fast, so you have time to set that up.
This sub seems to be pretty sold on 4 Manamorphose in the deck. And I will probably test this new build in the coming days and weeks. I can see the big upside of Manamorphose in theory, because imo the Achilles' heel of the deck is it's manabase. Playing only 1 basic is extremely greedy and you often need 4 colors in a match to function. 4 Manamorphose and an additional forest seem to solve this problem, but I am not yet entirely sold on it. Not playing Liliana and an additional threat like Flayer or Snap hurts the deck especially in attrition-based matchups. Here is the list I have been playing so far in the post-unban meta:
Apart from the Humans matchup (I swapped Grudge for Abrade in order to improve it) I really like this decklist in the current meta. I am just not yet sold on the Manamorphose in the deck because removing Liliana and Snap from the deck feels like giving up all the midrange mirrors (I understand what you say, the deck is more combo than midrange with Manamorphose). But Traverse Shadow was never a deck that was weak to combo decks, and I don't think you improve your big mana matchups by including Manamorphose (they are actually very close to 50/50 with the list above from my experience). I can see the advantage of your build against UW Control, Ponza and other Blood Moon decks, but are they worth giving up on a powerhouse like LotV, which is probably the single best card against Control?
Making assumptions without having played with a card seems to be stupid, and I am aware of that, but I just don't know the direction of the deck and am therefore asking these questions. The deck is not seen on any bigger tournaments (not sure whether people still try out Jace/BBE decks or don't see the power of the deck), so there doesn't seem to be the one perfect list. That's why I am curious about other people's builds, experience and new techs.
Not playing Liliana and an additional threat like Flayer or Snap hurts the deck especially in attrition-based matchups.
Manamorphose makes the deck effectively 48 cards instead of 52 cards, and makes the Traverses more consistent. If anything, the threat density feels higher than in previous builds without Manamorphose and with 1-2 extra threats (I had 2 Grim Flayer in those builds).
You don't have to concede to midrange decks if you don't want to. Liliana is still good, and Lingering Souls out of the SB is still great. You could cut the blue MD for LotVs, and stick the Lingering Souls in the SB and be pretty good against most midrange decks. I just don't think that's the best way to be positioned right now. But if you disagree, feel free to experiment! This is still a 4-5 color deck with access to most of the best cards in the format. Build the deck to beat the metagame you want to beat. Playing Manamorphose doesn't stop you from doing that - if anything, it helps, since it fixes the mana and makes the plan A that much better.
I've been leaning towards playing 5 colors again, largely on the back of how well positioned Lingering Souls is right now. It's a solid card against Humans and Hollow One, while also being good against decks running a lot of single-target removal to try to beat them. I think that it was worse when the other midrange decks were also running Lingering Souls (Abzan, in particular), but it's still a card that Jund struggles with and it allows you to attack into Humans and Hollow One without being afraid of dying on the back swing. Hype_rion, your list is very close to what I've been eyeing up for 5 colors, with one notable exception.
I do not like Liliana of the Veil in the main board of this deck. Because we run so few lands and no way to draw additional cards, I've often found her to just be awkward. You don't want to slam her against control decks because you'll often be discarding spells while they discard lands, she's not good against the go-wide creature decks, and tapping out for her on turn 3 against something like Storm can be a big risk. I think she's a generally fine grindy sideboard option if you don't want to splash for Lingering Souls, but I think that she lines up poorly against the other midrange decks right now. She's hard to defend (and just not good) against Mardu Pyromancer, and with Jund playing BBE and Treetop Village, in addition to more copies of Lightning Bolt, I think she's hard to keep alive in that matchup unless you hold cards in hand.
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Cascading into EE is just the worst, why do you run it? Anger seems better right now.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I've been trying a few different builds lately:
- a Manamorphose/Whispers build similar to the one posted here that Jeff Hoogland 5-0'ed with
- a normal Manamorphose list similar to the one Spooly 5-0ed with a couple weeks ago
- a B/R base build running 4 Faithless Looting and no Manamorphose
- a 5-color list like the ones from late last year, because Lingering Souls seems good right now
I'm also trying to figure out a 5-color list that doesn't run a land in the sideboard, because it seems like Manamorphose can help smooth that out a bit. I've really just been throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Thank you
---------
This list is looking like mine and just did 5-0.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1019136#paper
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
The normal Manamorphose list was exactly what you'd expect, and did prompt me to pick up a set of Manamorphose in paper. The 5-color list also wasn't surprising one way or another, and after playing with the other lists it was nice to have access to Lingering Souls.
The Faithless Looting list is the one I've been putting the most effort into, because it's the least explored, in general. I was inspired by a Youtube video by a guy named Dylan Hovey, where he played a B/R (splashing Traverse and Lingering Souls in the board) list with Young Pyromancer and Bedlam Reveler instead of Goyf, and a playset of Faithless Looting. While the Young Pyros were okay, the cards that impressed me the most were Bedlam Reveler and Faithless Looting. Having access to the extra filtering was really key in not running out of steam, and alongside cards like Reveler and Souls it was really able to leverage it's graveyard as a card advantage engine in grindier matchups. Watching the way that Mardu Pyromancer can churn through it's deck with Looting and Reveler also made me want to explore then in Death's Shadow.
I'm still working my way through my first league with the deck, and working out some serious kinks in the balancing of my mana base and color requirements, but it's showing real promise so far. The biggest downside is that I'm not running blue, and I'm really feeling the loss of Stubborn Denial. Once I get the current manabase smoothed out I want to look at how to incorporate blue, and my gut says that I'll end up playing a couple of Manamorphose by the end.
It's extremely "work in progress" and I wanted to try some random stuff in the sideboard to try to get more value out of Faithless Looting, but this is what I'm currently testing:
1x Arid Mesa
1x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Godless Shrine
1x Mountain
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Stomping Ground
1x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills
Artifact (4)
4x Mishra's Bauble
Instant (11)
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Fatal Push
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Temur Battle Rage
2x Terminate
1x Bedlam Reveler
4x Death's Shadow
1x Grim Flayer
4x Street Wraith
4x Tarmogoyf
Sorcery (14)
4x Faithless Looting
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
2x Traverse the Ulvenwald
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Bedlam Reveler
3x Collective Brutality
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Lingering Souls
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Pyroclasm
1x Ray of Revelation
I think that the Flayer is unnecessary and the maindeck Reveler may not want to be there, either. The Abrupt Decays are putting a little too much strain on the mana base, and notably can't be cast off of the basic mountain. If I were to try to squeeze the blue into the deck, I'd probably look at cutting the Flayer, Reveler, Decays, and an Inquisition for some combination of Manamorphose and Stubborn Denial.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
What is your current list?
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
After the success of my sultai whisper deck ( one time on steam i will admits, but localy has been pulling work), i will be trying to be playing a 4c version with manamorophose.
http://www.metamox.com/deck/modern-jund-death-s-shadow/201703/ note: IoK can and will be replaced by Whisper in the list.
Might be awhile before i can tested it fully tho, having too much fun with Titi blue moon control in modern.
Spooly's list almost down to a T:
4 Goyf
4 Wraith
4 Shadow
4 Bauble
4 Manamorphose
4 IOK
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse
3 Push
2 Decay
2 Stub
2 TBR
2 Dismember
17 Lands
2 Collective Brutality
2 Delay
2 Abrade
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Fulminator (don't like them)
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Hazoret
1 Stub
1 Liliana TLH
1 Grim Lavamancer
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
It could probably work. But I play 4 BBE and 4 Kcommand. I grind better than most deck;; I don't think the deck needs
to use more slot to grind with Lingering souls. Eidolon of Rhetoric and/or Kataki seems good options tho.
My main answer to tron and valakut are of course ''TBR and GHOR'' but Magus helps too in these matchup; I would
have to give up on him. Because splashing white means I wont play wooded foothills. I'll play MarshFlat.
Basic Green will be harder to get. (we still can traverse into it tho.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Been playing nearly exact same list minus SB for a little while; - 1 push + 1 dismember, and -3 IoK for 2 whispers and a tarfire. Also running a Stomping ground instead of 2 tombs.
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Street Wraith
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Manamorphose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Battle Rage
3 Fatal Push
2 Dismember
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Delay
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrade
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Hazoret, the Fervent
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Snapcaster Mage
I took it to SCG Cincinatti, but our team had some insanely bad luck in the early rounds. (And let's be real, I punted once or twice). I didn't play the classic day two, but did well in smaller side events.
It's pretty similar to every list I've talked about here in the past few months, but I think it's worth reiterating the main points: Manamorphose is insane, play this as a combo deck first and a midrange deck second, hope to dodge Jund. The only things I would really consider changing are SB slots. I've seen people cutting a removal spell for a Stub, which doesn't seem great given how well Humans and Hollow One are doing right now. It might be worth revisiting the removal mix though - do we need more ways to kill Hollow One / Gurmag Angler? A friend of mine shaved a couple removal spells for LotV, which in principle does this, but in practice Bloodghast and Flamewake Phoenix are a problem.
As far as the SB slots, your local metagame may vary, but for the broader (MTGO, SCG) metagame, the main slots I would toy with are the Pulse and the Snapcaster. Spellbomb is much needed graveyard hate in a lot of matchups (Hollow One, Dredge, Pyromancer), and can replace a couple Street Wraith when you don't want that many ways to hurt yourself, but you can't cut too many cantrips or you'll never hit land drops (e.g. vs. UWR, Pyromancer). Abrade is really good against Humans, good against Hollow One, and gives you artifact hate where that matters (Affinity, Eggs, Lantern). Lavamancer is needed vs. Humans and great in a lot of other spots (Death and Taxes variants, Counters Company, etc). It's often too slow in other aggro matchups, but often still worth bringing in - e.g. I've died to Elves with an active Lavaman before because of Shaman of the Pack. Delay is way better than Disdainful Stroke. The downside is rare, and the upside is that you get to counter Chalice, O Stone, Relic, removal spells, counterspells, 3 mana Gideon, Scrap Trawler, Ensnaring Bridge. Also, note that putting a Bridge or Trawler on suspend is WAY better than putting it in the opponent's graveyard, given stuff like Academy Ruins, Myr Retriever, etc. Fulminator is basically hate for the big mana decks, since it's an easy way to get percentage points against the metagame. It also tends to come in against decks with man lands, especially Uxy control decks since you don't want to leave in removal. Remember you can Traverse for Fulminator so you effectively have more. Hazoret is token grindy card number 1, and it's really good at its job - killing Jaces. But it can also steal games against basically any midrange/control deck. Note that UWx control decks typically have Path + Purge, so pick your spots. Snapcaster is token grindy card number 2, and it's less good, but sometimes it's a sweet traverse target. Pulse is token grindy card number 3 that also happens to kill problematic permanents like Gurmag Angler, Hollow One, Ensnaring Bridge, Worship, Ethereal Armor, planeswalkers, etc. It's a catch all, which is nice, but it's not typically very high impact.
Options to replace Snap / Pulse with: Liliana, the Last Hope, Izzet Staticaster, 2nd Grim Lavamancer, Lightning Bolt (more humans hate), The Scarab God (I know, I know, but just maybe.....), 3rd Temur Battle Rage, Liliana of the Veil, Kolaghan's Command, etc. Just spitballin' here.
It's hard to cut Manamorphose for mana conisistency reasons, like you say, but by the time we can cast them we already have 2 lands in play. So Morphose at best finds you your 3rd land or fixes some color issues on a key turn. So it doesn't hurt too much to shave 1-2 against Thalia decks. The problem is that every Thalia deck that isn't Humans is a Taxes variant, and Morphose is key for fighting through mana denial - both to hit extra land drops to insulate against the land destruction, and to cast key spells when they try to color screw you. So I wouldn't cut any Morphose against Taxes variants, despite Thalia. Against both decks we load up on removal postboard anyway, so it isn't too hard to kill Thalia EOT, then untap and unload all of the Manamorphoses stuck in your hand. Taxes, at least, doesn't kill too fast, so you have time to set that up.
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
Planeswalker: 2
2 Liliana of the Veil
Spells: 23
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Fatal Push
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Dismember
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Swamp
1 Hostage Taker
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Fatal Push
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Golgari Charm
2 Collective Brutality
2 Abrade
2 Delay
3 Lingering Souls
1 Godless Shrine
Apart from the Humans matchup (I swapped Grudge for Abrade in order to improve it) I really like this decklist in the current meta. I am just not yet sold on the Manamorphose in the deck because removing Liliana and Snap from the deck feels like giving up all the midrange mirrors (I understand what you say, the deck is more combo than midrange with Manamorphose). But Traverse Shadow was never a deck that was weak to combo decks, and I don't think you improve your big mana matchups by including Manamorphose (they are actually very close to 50/50 with the list above from my experience). I can see the advantage of your build against UW Control, Ponza and other Blood Moon decks, but are they worth giving up on a powerhouse like LotV, which is probably the single best card against Control?
Making assumptions without having played with a card seems to be stupid, and I am aware of that, but I just don't know the direction of the deck and am therefore asking these questions. The deck is not seen on any bigger tournaments (not sure whether people still try out Jace/BBE decks or don't see the power of the deck), so there doesn't seem to be the one perfect list. That's why I am curious about other people's builds, experience and new techs.
Manamorphose makes the deck effectively 48 cards instead of 52 cards, and makes the Traverses more consistent. If anything, the threat density feels higher than in previous builds without Manamorphose and with 1-2 extra threats (I had 2 Grim Flayer in those builds).
You don't have to concede to midrange decks if you don't want to. Liliana is still good, and Lingering Souls out of the SB is still great. You could cut the blue MD for LotVs, and stick the Lingering Souls in the SB and be pretty good against most midrange decks. I just don't think that's the best way to be positioned right now. But if you disagree, feel free to experiment! This is still a 4-5 color deck with access to most of the best cards in the format. Build the deck to beat the metagame you want to beat. Playing Manamorphose doesn't stop you from doing that - if anything, it helps, since it fixes the mana and makes the plan A that much better.
I do not like Liliana of the Veil in the main board of this deck. Because we run so few lands and no way to draw additional cards, I've often found her to just be awkward. You don't want to slam her against control decks because you'll often be discarding spells while they discard lands, she's not good against the go-wide creature decks, and tapping out for her on turn 3 against something like Storm can be a big risk. I think she's a generally fine grindy sideboard option if you don't want to splash for Lingering Souls, but I think that she lines up poorly against the other midrange decks right now. She's hard to defend (and just not good) against Mardu Pyromancer, and with Jund playing BBE and Treetop Village, in addition to more copies of Lightning Bolt, I think she's hard to keep alive in that matchup unless you hold cards in hand.