I've been very happy with the following list. It rarely has problems with finding finishers. Call of the skybreaker is a weird card since it's frikkin expensive and clunky but quite a number of situations come up where neither Morphling nor efreet can get the job done but Call will eventually grind it out. Having a way of recursively producing dragons also means you are less boned by opposing graveyard recursion.
// Lands
23 [10E] Island (3)
// Creatures
1 [US] Morphling
1 [VI] Rainbow Efreet
// Spells
2 [GP] Repeal
4 [U] Nevinyrral's Disk
3 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [TSP] Think Twice
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [IA] Counterspell
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
1 [LRW] Cryptic Command
3 [FNM] Force Spike
4 [NE] Accumulated Knowledge
2 [TE] Intuition
1 [EVE] Call the Skybreaker
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [US] Back to Basics
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
It looks real janky but I feel like the list is very strong, the draw suite being particularly powerful since it can easily outdraw other controldecs in the lategame and can be cantripped against everything else early game preventing manascrew quite readily. Vendilllion Cliques and Chalice are there for combo and for the sake of flexibility since there's quite a few matchups where you want to board out stuff like disks, shakels, bounce but don't have anything good to bring in.
Has anyone won any games off the back of Call the Skybreaker? I would like to hear about them if anyone has done so.
I don't understand what you mean by "I have to wait to draw another card".Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Illissius, if you re-read the last 4 pages, there has been suggestion of cutting Morphling altogether, in favor of stuff like Call the Skybreaker.
And as to my previous question, I think I should rephrase: if your deck did what it was designed to do, then how are people not winning with Morphling + other creature package? I add that opening clause because when my deck does what it's supposed to do (locking up board, drawing tons of cards), I very rarely lose with a Morphling + other creature win package. If my opponent was able to smash/combo before I could stabilize and establish board control, then my deck did not do what it was designed to do and I fail to see how debating the win condition is relevant in that situation.
Also, if you are afraid for your Morphling because of Wrath & countermagic (as suggested by IBA) or Deed & Edict, then I'm assuming you're playing against Landstill variants. As you well know, we have an excellent matchup against Landstill, and if your deck did what it was designed to do, I don't really see the Landstill player out countering you or out Wrathing you on a consistent basis. Will they be able to push something through sometimes? Sure, it happens. Will they be able to Wrath for free, with no resistance from you everytime you play Morphling? I doubt it.
My bad. Another threat is what I meant.
Yes. I have.
I won.
It was off the back of Call the Skybreaker.
It is really nice to flip it off Fact or Fiction by the way.
In seriousness, the inevitability matters.
Time limits are what keep Control decks down. Morphling is slightly faster than Call the Skybreaker (maybe) in the situation where he works, and vastly slower in the situation where he doesn't by means of being countered or dead.
You lose or tie rounds (which is as good as a loss half the time) because of kill conditions dying or being answered. This is why you should make it as hard to answer your kill conditions as possible. Either make them very resilient, or put them in business slots so they double up. Morphling serves no secondary function beyond being a very expensive wall. I'd rather run Razormane Masticore as a secondary kill on top of CtS, for instance. Razormane Masticore can single-handedly destroy a lot of aggro and aggro-control decks. Or Venser, who can do double-duty. Or Jace.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I really like 95% of what you say about cards and decks. But SOMETIMES I just don't get it.
The problem with this is not that they are necessarily out-countering us or casting Wrath of God on a consistent basis. The problem is they are forcing us to out-counter them, only to Wrath the next turn. When we cast Morphling (turn 10 maybe?), the landstill player is going to attempt to counter it (and your opponent probably will because the only real threats against them are our win conditions and Back to Basics and the opponent is running 8-13 counterspells); we must then spend our counterspell effects protecting Morphling in order to try and win. If we do that, we more often than not leave ourselves vulnerable for the opponent's next turn Wrath or even worse, Humility. I have found that to be a likely scenario (and not that far-fetched, seeing as it is 10 turns in with the landstill player having played Brainstorm at least once or twice so "dead cards" like Swords to Plowshares are less likely to be in his or her hand). I think that Morphling is just a tease in these matchups; it looks really awesome and can win games, but I know the card can bite me in the ass just as many times as it will destroy my opponent.
End of turn...Morphling
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE
So..Morphling sucks and is to expensive.
But your prefer and recommend to run a 5 mana cost Artifact creature, that has no shroud, no flying, no untap abilities and has an additional upkeep cost every turn above it.
I see what you did there.
The problem is that Morphling requires an almost unrealistic amount of mana for what it does. Until you've got a bajillion mana, all it can do is wall, where as Razormane Masticore is constantly applying pressure and keeping the field clear. Plus, call me insane, but I'd rather be discarding situational cards to keep the Masticore in play than spending a shitton of mana to make Morphling useful and thereby leaving me unable to react to a damn thing on my opponent's turn if I don't have a Force of Will in hand.
Uh, I don't know about Draw/Go, but with permanent-based MUC, I rarely use Morphling to block. By the time I play Morphling (well beyond turn 10 as someone suggested), I usually have multiple Propaganda and Shackles active, an active Keg ready to pick off anything that might slip through, B2B limiting my opponent's disposable mana, 5-7 cards in hand, and an assload of Islands available. This is my deck doing what it was designed to do.
If my deck didn't do what it was designed to do, and I have to resort to using an 'early' Morphling to block, or I don't have any board control permanents to speak of, or my hand is gassed, or I'm staring down a horde of creatures ready to swing for lethal, that's more the failing of the deck, not the win condition.
I'm calling you insane. You don't have any recurring card advantage to sustain Razormane Masticore before you start discarding important cards (not to mention, you'll be using cards to counter or whatnot). Razormane is counterproductive for the deck. It actually requires more care than Morphling. I'm puzzled as to why you think Morphling needs that much maintenance, at least more than Razormane.The problem is that Morphling requires an almost unrealistic amount of mana for what it does. Until you've got a bajillion mana, all it can do is wall, where as Razormane Masticore is constantly applying pressure and keeping the field clear. Plus, call me insane, but I'd rather be discarding situational cards to keep the Masticore in play than spending a shitton of mana to make Morphling useful and thereby leaving me unable to react to a damn thing on my opponent's turn if I don't have a Force of Will in hand.
I don't see why Morphling needs that much mana the turn after you cast him. I never rush to cast Morphling, I always make sure I have a surplus amount of mana to cast Morphling, which is not unrealistic at all, given the board control elements I use to buy me enough time.
To clarify;
You're constrained on card slots you can use for kill conditions in control.
There are two primary ways around this and the implications it has for losing to time.
The first is to run really hard to deal with kill conditions. Gigapede is the best example of this, others being Grave-Shell, Decree of Justice, etc...
The second is to run cards that allow you to cut some sort of control slot, because they serve a secondary function. Krosan Tusker, Razormane Masticore, Venser are examples of this; the best known example is manlands, which you can run in a landslot. This enables you to run somewhat more kill conditions over all.
Kill conditions that do both are nice; best examples here are Eternal Witness/Dragon. Idealy you want some mix, ala Dragon, Mesa, and Painter's-Stone in Quinn, or Witness/Gigapede/Echoes in Truffle Shuffle. Or DoJ/Manlands/Dragon in Landstill, if you want to use non-Jack Elgin deck examples for some reason.
Morphling gets maybe a 2/4 in both these categories. He's hard to Swords but easy to kill or counter otherwise, and he's little more than a wall for utility. He's not worth a kill slot and he doesn't serve as a utility slot.
This is indicative and not counterindicative of the point that Morphling is terrible because he simply blocks.
Then why not simply run Mahamoti Djinn and save some money?By the time I play Morphling (well beyond turn 10 as someone suggested), I usually have multiple Propaganda and Shackles active, an active Keg ready to pick off anything that might slip through, B2B limiting my opponent's disposable mana, 5-7 cards in hand, and an assload of Islands available. This is my deck doing what it was designed to do.
If my deck didn't do what it was designed to do, and I have to resort to using an 'early' Morphling to block, or I don't have any board control permanents to speak of, or my hand is gassed, or I'm staring down a horde of creatures ready to swing for lethal, that's more the failing of the deck, not the win condition.
I'm serious here.
Blue decks used to run Mahamoti Djinn because it was the most compact late-game kill condition monoblue had available. No good options in the above listed kill conditions existed in color yet. Morphling was simply an update on this.
But Morphling doesn't give you an edge when both you and an opponent are in topdeck mode and out of gas.
And Morphling doesn't give you an edge when you're losing or struggling not to lose.
Morphling does exactly one thing that Mahamoti doesn't do, and that's duck Swords to Plowshares.
Otherwise, you could have any generic large vanilla creature in that slot and it would save the same function. Presuming it was blue and still pitched to Force of Will.
Except most of the large blue creature printed since 2000 don't need an upkeep of 4UU to remain large, evasive and relevant.
For what Morphling costs to affect the board on a typical turn, you could just cast Keiga. At least Overbeing of Myth is a draw engine.
Morphling is a relic of a bygone era. Let it go. Your sentiment is unwarranted. All your argument for it does is reveal it's weakness. It's good when you've already won. What creature isn't? Eater of Days?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Sky Swallower
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
You, too... Stupid?
Team SPOD
<Der_imaginäre_Freund> props:
Adan for being the NQG God (drawer)
Damn. You know, I have to say, that's one of the best posts I've ever made. There should be laws against my level of brilliance, it's just not fair to the others.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
What? I can't make sense of this to decide if you're calling me stupid.
In any case, I was replying to the end of Jack's post.
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
If I'm in topdeck mode, I'm assuming that it's late game. If it's late game, it's also safe to assume I have a good amount of Islands out in play. In that scenario, I'll take topdeck Morphling over topdeck Djinn anyday.
If I'm losing, and facing an opponent's horde preparing to swing for lethal, there aren't many blue creatures that I can play and have them magically save me from imminent death.
I really don't understand where you're getting your numbers from. 4UU for Morphling to be relevant per turn? How? When? Why?
Also, your nonchalant attitude of Morphling just being able to evade StP/other targetted removal is strange; many, many decks do not have access to Wrath/Deed/Damnation/etc or simply don't play them. Most decks do play targetted removal/burn/bounce as their "failsafe" versus problematic creatures that have resolved.
Seriously, arguing with you is becoming tedious and tiresome. You're suggesting running Venser/Razorcore + CtS over Morphling + other creature. If you feel that's the best possible win package for your deck, then so be it. My testing has shown that Morphling + Rainbow Efreet is the most effective win package for my build.
Is studiously avoiding relevant points really so exhausting? You poor child.
Here, I'll tl;dr for you
1) Morphling cannot occupy a control, card draw, or mana slot.
2) For a dedicated kill condition slot, that did nothing except kill, you could run things that were either much more mana efficient (Spire Golem), or much more resilient (Call the Skybreaker). Morphling is marginally resistant, but not very.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I actually answered all of your points, but you know what, you're absolutely right about Morphling. The more I think about it, the better a win package of Venser + Spire Golem looks. Thanks for helping me out.
Irony has always been a cheap ass way of ducking out of an argument.
I addressed all points given by IBA, then he proceeds to say that I am avoiding them? And I do not understand how I'm ducking anything; he stated his opinion, I stated mine. Did I not address a particular point raised by IBA?
And by the way, it's sarcasm, not irony. Irony would be like a firefighter dying from a fire in his own home, or a brain surgeon dying from a brain tumor, etc.
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