Okie so tonight i was talking with my friend luke about h...

[kakeboy07]

Okie so tonight i was talking with my friend luke about how much i hate the fact that no one runs morphling anymore, and how he was such a house with drain mana. Well, i thought I'd post my favorite "keep morphling alive" deck.

Blue Badness.dec

Ultra-Cool Morphling Kill Condition:
3 Morphling
4 Voidmage Prodigy
3 Spiketail Hatchling

12 Counters
4 Mana drain
4 Counter-Spell
4 Fow

Uber Kewl Cards:
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Standstill
1 Time Walk

Annoying Stuff:
3 B2b
3 Null Rod

Cards That Let Me See More Cards:
4 Brainstorm

Utility Counters:
2 Misdirection

Mana Sources:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Chrome Mox
19 Islands

s/b:
3 Stifle  (many million uses and counting)
3 Energy Flux (all artifacts)
3 Annul
4 Blue elemental blast (red)
1 Chain of Vapor (general utility)
1 **OPEN**

Main Deck: 62 Cards
Sideboard : 15 Cards


Heres My Thoughts on the Deck::


Ive never played an actual Blue deck before. In fact i played Gay/r a couple times last week, and thats the main reason why im looking into a blue deck at all. I also have been trying out long and nought variants for like the past year, and that hasnt really struck my fancy as far as playing the deck. Id say my favorite 2 decks before this build are Tog and Gay/r Fish.

Some cards my build is missing:

Mishra's Factory : Poor synergy with b2b and null rod, but i still feel like the deck is missing something by not having any manlands. Of course B2b knocks out faerie conclaves from ever being a problem and factories can only attack once, but theres other decks that i am quite worried about (see spoils mask and quick aggro (maddness))

Grim Lavamancer: I like him alot in the U/r build. In fact, id say that he was the best card in the deck, but i was playing in a field where goblin welder was king.

Stifle has more Uses than Misdirection:

I think it does too, but i love ripping off peoples first turn ancestrals.

62 cards: Not tech for type one.

Which is why I posted it here. I would love to see people help me out. Criticism is sooooooooooo much appreciated[/i]


Some things that i feel this deck gains from Morphling:

a better creature to standstill under. Sure you take beats from gay fish for a while. Sure this deck might be a little slower than some others in the field, but once MoreFLING hits the table, youd better run, because hes played like a house in testing. Additionally, all the mana he eats up is complimented by the fact that there are some almost free counters (hatching/prodigy) and that b2b and null rod sustain disruption for a long time during most games.


Some Worries:

Chalice for 2: Which is why there are energy fluxes and anulls in the sideboard.


Speed: Everyones got me scared with this fundamental turn two thing. Can i do enough early to stand a chance late? I guess only more testing will tell. Im sure there will be an update to this deck later on this weekend.

Dragon Annul counters enchantments/ stifle stops dragon cold. I think i allocated enough sideboard slots to help out in that matchup, but im not sure yet.


As far as initial impressions. Im happy and proud to run morphling, and to try and play a blue deck for once. Spoils mask was a bit of a problem, and stax has been at times, but ive been having a decent run so far with this deck and cant wait to see where it takes me. I tried both septer and Cunning wish ... and they make this deck too slow to compete... so thats where i am with playtesting.

(ive played maybe 14 games with this deck... so i do in no way consider myself an expert)

Edited: G-mar

[Argopile]

First off I would like to suggest that you run:
Accumulated Knowledge (1U, Instant, Nemesis Common
Draw a card, then draw cards equal to the number of Accumulated Knowledge cards in all graveyards.)
and:
Polluted Delta (Land, Onslaught Rare
Tap, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Polluted Delta: Search your library for an island or swamp card and put it into play. Then shuffle your library.) There's also Flooded Strand (does the same thing)
The reason being is that AK is just good.  And it gets better as the game goes on and morphling decks tend to the late game heroics.  Of course Standstill isn't so bad either.  Maybe you could replace the Brainstorms with AK.

Polluted Delta lets you shuffle in the two cards you just put on top of your library.  It also thins out the lands in your deck allowing you to draw into more business spells more often.  Absolutely necessary for any deck period.
Beyond that maybe:
Mystical Tutor
(U, Instant, Mirage Uncommon
Search your library for an instant or sorcery card and reveal that card. Shuffle your library, then put the revealed card back on top of it.)
and:
Merchant Scroll
(1U, Sorcery, 8th Edition Uncommon
Search your library for a blue instant card, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)
And hey, props on bein bold enough to use a morphling

[Jander78]

The problem with running tutors is that you want a Mono-U deck to be as consistant as possible.  Tutors are clunky 1-ofs when trying to add consistancy to a deck.   If I were to run mono-u today I would probably be using maindeck Stifle, just due to the fact that it helps against many matchups warrants its inclusion MD.  I also think that Strips are necessary today against decks like Dragon, Fish variants, MUD, etc....

I would run something similar to this:

3 Morphling

4 Mana drain
4 Counterspell
4 Fow
1 Misdirection
3 Stifle

4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Capsize

2 Back to Basics

2 Nevinyraal's Disk
3 Powder Keg

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Polluted Delta
11 Islands

[kakeboy07]

Running b2b and null rod i feel are key components to stop faster decks from taking advantage of this slower deck.

Voidmage and spiketail are there because they have synergy with standstill and they're just nice creatures to have around.


brainstorm>impulse

and while i might add a couple of fetches... i dont think they make - or break the deck.

Accumulate Knowledge is just TOO slow and would make this already slow deck even slower to gain control.  

by gaining control i meant against aggro... which is the matchup where id want to stabalize as soon as possible


im hoping for people to comment on how well tuned this deck could be in comparrison to other decks like fish and gay/r fish ... towards the current meta.

thanks for comments so far

[BrokenDeck]

Well, it is kind of hard to compare an aggro-control deck and a pure control deck, it really depends on what decks are popular in your area.  

Accumulated knowledge is not too slow, because of all the multi-colored control decks running around with four of them.  And with twelve counters main deck, control decks should be a breeze with the proper draw engine.

[kakeboy07]

The Deck has been edited, to reflect the changes after playing about 30-40 matches (appr and IRL) this weekend with it.

the sideboard is now:
3 annul
2 null rod
2 energy flux
2 misdirection
4 stifle
2 blue elemental blast


Creature base hasnt changed much

+1 hatching

Dropped the Mis-directions to the sb
-2 Misdirection

-2 islands +2 faerie conclave

and Maindecked cotv
+3 COTV -3 Null Rod

61 Cards now


Here are my thoughts/reports and some deck analysis:


Matchup #1 Tom Modal playing dragon:

The s/b prooved to be the deciding factor in this one, where I was able to basically drop counterspells in favor of annuls and sub in both blue blasts and stifles. Those 9 additions put me in a very winable position every game. Back to Basics wasnt stellar in this matchup, but it never once hurt to draw 1 of them (i drew 2 of them in an opening hand twice in 8 matches (20 total games played))

In opening games i was 3-5 (2 games i mulled to 6 (drawing 2 b2b without fow in an opening hand sucks))

In game 2's (after +4 annul +2 blue blast +3 stifle -4 counterspell -2 conclave -3 null rod) I went exactly the opposite stat of 5-3

In game 3's I drew some great hands! I pulled off a first turn island - phling - lotus - mana drain - hatching - force of will - stifle going second i drew into another island and a second turn b2b. 6 Turns later my phling ended the match with him holding on to 2 worthless bazaars (turned sideways)  and a fist full of cards (i think he still had 5).

anyways in game 3's i was 3-1  and 5-3 matchwise

Thoughts about the matchup:

The sibeboard was golden in this one. I was rather unimpressed with standstill (it only worked for me 3x in 8 matches, and i wish i would have md stifles instead of it in this case)



Matchup #2 Gunslinga (tmd User) playing maddness/a few other scrubish decks

I never lost a match, never once sideboarded in a card, and i think i lost a total of 5 life in the 5 games we played (with this deck). (i was still maindecking mis-d at that time, and Gunslinga just couldnt catch a break (ripped of a first turn ancestral game 1))

Slinga also brought in his "eureka" deck/ which i proceeded to destroy (except one time when i thought id let him win and resolve a first turn eureka with a force of will in hand (not a mis-play, just thought id let him have a win)) he dropped a woodripper, v force and 2 other scrubby green creatures, and won by turn 3

Matchup #3-8 some great guys who's names i dont remember (1 might have been chad (he said he was a tmd member)) at a local St Louis Card store

After Borrowing every card to make this deck (my cards are in minnesnowda) I proceeded to play some of the reguars at Comic City (there was like 3 people who met me to play some T1 and the rest of the store looked like T2 heaven).

I was able to play against a stax deck and a Wmud deck / a long.dec (kc version ("final revision a la Steve"), and 2 fish decks (one with red splash but just for blood moons / reb (no lavamancers)


Stax and long were some tough matches. Even with siding in 4 annul 3 energy flux for both of them to help out against the brown looking threats, they still got off some nice locks.
The long.dec drove me to include chalice of the void md and to side out the null rods (due to the fact that even a 2nd turn null rod didnt stop long from going off).

I didnt take notes for those games, but i went about 40/60 against workshop post s/b (only won 2 games pre sideboard) and against long i took it on the nose in the first game (even with fow in hand!!!!!) and in the next 6 (my deck was changing the whole time. Went 4-2 (chalice = 1 was amazing and standstill voidmage helped me twice (drawing 3 cards from standstill is tech). I even played a morphling 2 times.

Fish was one of the more interesting matches so id like to comment on it here (note i had the COTV's still in the deck).

The first game of the match i drew a sapphire island and chalice on turn 1 dropped chalice and watched him cringe. Then i followed up with dropping an island and chowing on his spiketail with a mana drain. Using the drain mana i played a 3rd turn morphling and 4th turn standstill. He sided out wastes and i only moved in 2 mis-d (out went 2 b2b).

Game 2 (of course i drew the only b2b in my deck) my hand was almost as good as game 1. Ancestral and lotus in hand gave me a first turn hatching and 2 fow 1 mis-d in my hand.
Countered his first 2 creature drops (1 fow)  and then remembered that he ran 4 faerie conclaves in his deck and dropped b2b. I showed him a drain island fow and morphling, as well as the standstill i drew, and he in turn showed me a conclave, volcanic, curiosity, and something gay. Then proceeded to topdeck 2 faerie conclaves and scooped.

We played 4 more games, splitting 2-2, his deck got alot gayer in those matches and he standstilled me twice. I never played a morphling in either loss, and averaged a turn 3 morphling in all my wins.


My thoughts after playing with this deck

I played a few more matches against everything from a ptq new orleans deck (which got owned by fow) to a ww deck and 2 mono black chalice decks. Chalice =2 Kills THIS DECK!!

My thoughts on a weekend very full of magic are this:

I feel that this deck could perform well (and could have a much better pilot) in the current meta for a couple of reasons:


1. The sideboard takes care of alot of the "big threats". The expensive decks in the meta (Wmud,Dragon,long, and even tps now are all thought of in the sideboard.
I was rather surprised with my performance against dragon, and would love to play that matchup more (especially due to the craze its causing) , but stifle wasnt the key in that matchup surprisingly, it was annul / voidmage. Voidmage held its ground for the locks and annul was used to counter everything from a first turn black lotus to about 4 reanimation spells.

2. Morphling is a beast. When i got it out, morphling went the distance. When i didnt, the deck suffered.

Im wondering what other creatures i could use instead of spiketail (maybe bouncer) or voidmage. Id love to hear some opinions on that

3. I didnt miss not having wasteland

wasteland is great, but in this deck i dont think i ever really missed having it (sure they could still fetch basic lands, but most decks only run 1-2 basics).


4. I did however miss not having some form of bounce!

I think this deck needs some form of removal, but im not sure what it should be yet. Im worried about mask/nought and havent played it yet. However ill play both my spoils nought and veng nought deck once i get home, so im sure ill have more input at that time.



Thanks for reading this pile of jank

Let me know your thoughts

Joel