I will make you believe vanilla is a viable strategy in Commander. I know what you're thinking. I was there too. It's just going to be a bunch of simple beaters or tokens and it's going to completely fall apart once the commander gets removed. That was a real concern for the deck and one I needed to mitigate. There are actually a lot of tools that have been overlooked for the strategy which I discovered at different stages of the deck's development.
Speaking of development, this deck, like most of my ideas, came about in stages. It was also abandoned more than once. Stage one was Ruxa, Patient Professor from Strixhaven. I didn't get into the idea, but it seemed everyone else posting tech about bears and beaters and thought the price of Muraganda Petroglyphs was going to skyrocket. It was a flash in the pan and I never really had to move on since I didn't get invested.
A good idea doesn't stay on the backburner very long. Shortly thereafter Eldraine came to mind for me and a new piece of the puzzle emerged, Adventure. The stapled on spell seems like it would exclude the creatures from being vanilla, but that's not the case. Tuinvale Treefolk is a gret beater as a 6/5. By itself, it would be too low impact for most games. Oaken Boon makes it a little more palatable. Those counters only provide a power and toughness bump. They don't grant abilities. There are a ton of +1/+1 counter synergies in Green, but that just started to feel a little too predictable. And I wasn't interested in a mono Green deck at the time. So the idea went back on the shelf.
It didn't stay idle too long. Dominaria United was around the corner and it brought with it a ton of reworked legends. One of those was Jasmine Boreal of the Seven. She was a step above Ruxa for this plan. She ramps me which is key since I want to be playing a lot of creatures. The fact she makes creatures unblockable rather than giving them a Thorn Elemental effect like Ruxa is a step above. Why put my creatures in harm's way and allow opponents to block them? The other thing Jasmine has going for her is that she's 2 colors. More colors in a niche strategy means I'm not stuck playing a card just to hit a critical mass in my strategy. I can be a little more discerning. Now I have access to Shepherd of the Flock. It's just viewed as a 3/1 by Jasmine or Ruxa. You've seen me add it to a fair number of decks before, but that was more for Usher to Safety. In this list they're both pulling equal weight.
I expanded my scope of +1/+1 counter cards. White has Cathar's Crusade. I don't really need to elaborate, but with a bit of ramp and a creature heavy strategy, it gets out of hand quick. I also like Path of Discovery. Lands in hand mean I hit my land drops. You aren't really ramping unless you hit your land drops. If I don't find a land I can make a counter happen.
Since I now cared about the top card of my deck I needed a couple of Scry options. Lifecrafter's Bestiary was going to make the cut for this deck anyway, with so many creatures. The extra mana to draw a card is clutch in a deck like this. My ramp and removal get in on the scry action as well. Omen of the Hunt pulls out a land for me and I can pop it and scry before a big turn. Skywhaler's Shot and Expose to Daylight hit troublesome permanents and give me a little control over what I draw next.
The idea was very novel but I knew it didn't have enough staying power for me to actually build it. So the burgeoning list went dormant again. It wasn't until the first look at the Murders at Karlov Manor decks did I think about it again. When Deadly Disguise was hinted at everyone thought it was going to be a morph deck. Morphs in Naya, weird. So I started looking into them a little more. They're just 2/2 creatures, but what was generally overlooked? The ability to turn the card face up isn't really an ability on the card. They're just vanilla 2/2s. If you look at Ruxa's page on Gatherer it even mentions that face down creatures are vanilla with no abilities. I just scaled that thinking up to Selesneya. There was my angle. Jasmine is the true morph commander. Move over Kadena.
It wasn't just morps. I have Megamorph and Manifest at my disposal too. But before I got started I had 2 big ideas to get straight: Should I wait until Karlov Manor to see if there was any cool new tech for the deck, and should my morphs be vanilla when they're turned face up? The answer to both questions was NO. I'm glad I didn't wait since all this cloak and disguise stuff meant the face down creature has the ward ability. And the face up side of any morph card has the morph ability, so it's going to lose any benefits from Jasmine once it's turned over.
So.....Let's Get Weird! What were some powerful morph type cards in Seleysnea colors? I thought back to my Tarkir standard days and Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor jumped to mind. They work opposite sides of the recursion angle, Deathmist comes back when something else flips and the Protector recurs something when it flips. I certainly don't mind when I bin the Raptor with Path to Discovery early on. Aside from taking things out of my graveyard morph lets me put stuff in other peoples' graveyards too. Hidden Dragonslayer knocks out a big threat and sticks around to gain me some life. Nantuko Vigilante and Ainok Survivalist flip to hit an artifact or enchantment. I realize how far the game has powercrept whenever I play the Vigilante.
After I flip a card I'm going to lose whatever bump that creature is getting from being plain. That could be a big downgrade for future combats. Except, I found a way around it. I have cards like Thelonite Hermit for just that reason. It's expensive to flip but when I do I get a bunch of 1/1 tokens without anything else going for them. Then the Hermit gives them and any other saporlings I happen to have a bump. They also benefit from cards like Petroglyphs, Ruxa, or Jasmine. Hooded Hydra plays nice with my +1/+1 counters and leaves me little tokens when it dies. I generally play it face down. A time or two I've cast it face up with a comparable number of counters and it's been fine. I remember wanting to dissuade a board wipe and the fact I would have a board state after the fact was supposed to prevent the wrath. It didn't, but I recovered pretty quick.
Back to the morph talk. There are a couple of wild cards I've enjoyed in this deck. Master of Pearls is one. It's a great combat trick. Math is for attackers sometimes and I like to deploy this ability when I know it will push the damage over the top. Pine Walker is a big surprise the first time opponents encounter it. I attack a lot with the deck and it often looks like I overextended myself. Someone throws a couple of creatures at me in retribution and all of a sudden I flip the Walker and have a blocker available. Weathered Bodyguards takes one for the team, and by that I mean me. Not blocking is risky but the opportunity to let all that damage redirect to him is a big payoff. Whisperwood Elemental is another Tarkir standout. It also plays nice with any scry effects I have lying around. Why pay the 3 to cast a morph when he'll put it onto the field for me. Temur War Shaman isn't a morph himself, but it turns them all into creature removal with a solid fight effect.
When I started fleshing this deck out I realized I had a blind spot to a couple more recent cards. The first being Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate. A stand in to a commander deck I didn't buy and haven't played against, it was easy for me to recognize why it was new to me. That and Ugin's Mastery. They play great with the theme and were quick pickups for the deck.
A couple things to round out the strategy, then I'll drop the list on you. These creatures are not evasive on their own. With that though they can't deal with evasive threats. I added Sandwurm Convergence and Gravity Well to the deck to deal with troublesome flyers. Convergence has the benefit of making me an abilityless token every turn. That's great synergy. I also added Marshal's Anthem and Spear of Heliod as additional anthems. I think they're more impactful than Petroglyphs to be honest. The spear punishes an attacker and the Anthem works as recursion which is nice with so many permanents in my deck. I felt really slick adding Yedora, Grave Gardener into the deck too. But it's not that unheard of in the strategy. Lands are nice since they're hard to remove. The ability to morph them again just makes the effect even better.
How did the deck turn out? Like this.
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Nantuko Vigilante Shepherd of the Flock Ruxa, Patient Professor
Ainok Survivalist Tuinvale Treefolk Muraganda Petroglyphs
Thelonite Hermit Rumor Gatherer Darksteel Pendant
Broodhatch Nantuko Unbreakable Formation Angel of Jubilation
Hooded Hydra Make A Stand Spear of Heliod
Deathmist Raptor Felidar Retreat Marshal's Anthem
Den Protector Path to Discovery Aura Mutation
Hidden Dragonslayer Shamanic Revelation Dromoka's Command
Weathered Bodyguards Guardian Project Collective Effort
Tribal Forcemage Lifecrafter's Bestiary Expose to Daylight
Saltroad Ambushers Sandwurm Convergence Guiding Bolt
Master of Pearls Gravity Well Skywhaler'sShot
Whisperwood Elemental Citadel Siege All is Dust
Pine Walker Cathar's Crusade Mass Calcify
Temur War Shaman Basri's Solidarity Wayfarer's Bauble
Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate Sunset Pyramid Star Compass
Ugin's Mastery Sentinel Totem Rampant Growth
Wild Call Lens of Clarity Obscuring Aether
Formless Nurturing Trail of Mystery Liquimetal Torque
Inscription of Abundance Champion of Lambholt Omen of the Hunt
Mastery of the Unseen Kayla's Command Introduction to Prophecy
Yedora, Grave Gardener
Zoetic Cavern Isolated Watchtower New Benalia
Temple of Plenty Zalafrian Void Bretagard Stronghold
Gavony Township Scavenger Grounds
Plains x14 Forest x14
The deck is fun to play and keeps opponents on their toes across multiple games. Morphs feel like a trap. Whenever someone attacks into them or blocks them they need a high level of confidence they can deal with whatever is under there. Chump blocking or being chumped for that matter feels less enticing. If they can even block. The tokens are fine in combat or on defense, so I have no complaints there. The biggest obstacle is not playing the deck for a little while. I lose the smoothness of when to morph vs hold back a creature if I don't play the deck for a little while. There's another layer to the deck that I wasn't expecting. It's interesting. What do you think the potential is here versus something like Kadena or even Animar?
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