By: Colin Turzai

The Deck Primer

 Faceless Menace is a sultai (bug colors) morph deck that should be led by Kadena the Slinking Sorcerer. It should be noted that the precon also contains two lackluster legends: Rayami First of the Fallen and Vorlath the Shapestealer that are absolutely useless to this deck’s strategy and to be frank would be at the bottom of my list of legends to pull out of a binder and build around.

 The focus of the precon, and the focus of a deck following this logical build foundation, is a morph deck, morph being one of the most interesting and intellectually stimulating mechanics that Wizards of the Coast has ever put into standard set (Invasion Block and Khans Block to be specific).

 The focus of a morph deck is to control information and when possible make your opponents decision trees or game actions irrelevant. This is most often done by playing morphs early enough in the game that you can allow your opponents to play into your trap allowing you to artificially create a “blow out” situation that often is only able to happen when an opponent over commits to the board over the stack when they are trying to swing the game in their favor.

The All Stars

  The All Stars of my Morph Deck include the cards that made it from the precon, to the end of the league. I will do what I can to explain why each of them are worthwhile inclusions in morph decks in the future. 

The All Stars include: 

• Deathmist Raptor
  • A 2 for 1 Morph after it’s died, it makes combats always profitable.
• Ixidron 
  • You’ve never seen your opponent more depressed when you resolve this against a non token deck with more than 5 creatures (one of which is their commander). The salt this card generates could sustain McDonald’s fry stations for years. 
• Leadership Vacuum 
  • A truly unique cantrip that also either answers an opponent’s commander or saves your own from effects such as Imprison in the Moon/Song of the Dryads. 
• Putrefy 
  • Solid and Efficient removal. Is there better? Yes, did we need it? No.  
• Ash Barrens
  • Basic land cycling is so powerful in a three color deck. 
• Skinthinner
  • All morphs are good, even the bad ones. 
• Kheru Spellsnatcher
  • All morphs are good, this isn’t even a bad one. 
• Vesuvan Shapeshifter 
  • A morph clone that repeats itself is more powerful then anyone at R&D ever thought possible. 
• Nantuko Vigilante 
  • All morphs are good, even the bad ones. 
• Grim Haruspex 
  • `Do you wanna draw cards? Do you want draw cards to punish your opponent from killing all your morphs? For the cost of one black boy do I have the card for you. 
• Farseek
  • The only downside to this spell is it can’t get a forest. It’s a good thing that never matters. 
• Overwhelming Stampede 
  • This single spell has one me more games this league then I care to admit. The deck can go on the beat down scarily fast. 
• Reality Shift
  • Exile is some of the best removal in the history of the game. Exile that also likely deprives your opponent of the top card of their library for the rest of the game (if it isn’t a creature) is even better. 
• Thousand Winds
  • Literally the closest thing the deck can have to the efficiency of a cyclonic rift situation, and it feels dirty every time your opponent swings into it. 
• Sol Ring
  • Do I need to explain this? 
• Icefeather Aven
  • Bouncing your opponents important creatures every time they move to combat is so dirty, and yet so fun. 
• Sagu Mauler
  • This hidden beat stick is the bane to deceptifully profitable blocks everywhere. 
• Seedborn Muse
  • The not so secret sleeper of this deck, I’m glad it comes in the precon cause I could not afford it on budget. 
• Scroll of Fate
  • Do you want more morphs? Good, now your whole hand is morphs. 
• Great Oak Guardian 
  • A combat trick I first thought was garbage, until I resolved it. It’s so much better than it seems on your first read. 
• Sunken Hollow
  • Is a shockland better? Yes. Does a shockland come in the precon? No. 
• Evolving Wilds
  • Solid fetchland, good with a plethora of basics. 
• Lnawoar Wastes 
  • Pain lands are helpful in three colors and up, this one is no different. 
• Gift of Doom 
  • One of the better morphs for its flip up cost, sac a creature to give your commander indestructible and death touch is very good. 
• Kaden’s Silencer
  • A morph based summary dismissal is one of the best control elements in the deck. 
• Ainok Survivalist
  • Answers to enchants and artifacts are always needed, this morph is no different. 
• Hooded Hydra
  • Ironically this morph is better when manifested, but even morphed its a great beater. 
• Opulent Palace
  • Solid three color fixing 
• Command Tower
  • Solid three color fixing 
• Startus Dancer 
  • A morph counterspell is always good to open up with early in the game, and better to surprise your opponent with in the late game. 
• Thelonite Hermit
  • Build your own army on a morph, solid choice. 
• Terramorphic Expanse 
  • Solid fetchland, good with a plethora of basics. 
• Den Protector
  • Regrowth on a morph, never better.  
• Explore
  • One of magic’s most iconic non blue cantrips, and it also acts as a cheap ramp spell in the early game. 
• Silumgar Assassin
  • A very narrow kill spell, but a helpful all the same. 
• Ghastly Conscription 
  • A late game powerhouse after either you or your opponent have lost a tremendous amount of creatures .
• Mistfire Weaver 
  • Kill spells? What kill spells? That wasn’t targeting Kadena was it? That’s a shame. 
• Chromeshell Crab 
  • in case you friends don’t find perplexing chimera annoying enough, why not give them a useless crab they can do nothing with but block. 
• Bane of the Living 
  • The only board wipe the morph deck REALLY needs, and it’s always fun. 
• Yavimaya Coast 
  • Pain lands are helpful in three colors and up, this one is no different. 

The Cuts

 In any pre constructed product released by Wizards of the Coast there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers, in regards to card quality. And, something we often have to contend with in regards to commander decks is the same kind of trash cards that we have to deal with in every other product. As Mark Rosewater says very often through his Tumblr blog Blogatog, “Not every card gets to be a winner.” the bad cards make the good cards all that better by existing.

 There were a lot of garbage cards dragging this deck down. The first batch of them are in every commander deck ever made: the “alternate” commanders, meaning that these commanders are legally speaking able to be subbed in as commanders to lead the deck. However, for the two alternate commanders for this deck I cannot recommend you sub them out for this deck, or frankly any deck.

Beyond these specific ruminations here is an itemized list of The Cuts, with a summary of why they did not get kept in the deck long term (in most cases not past week 2)” 

• 1 Apex Altisaur
  • Given the CMC of this creature acting like its a board wipe you could be playing any budget friendly board wipe and be much happier considering this card has the indecency of not moving your board state forward in most cases, as when it acts as a real board wipe it likely does not live. 
• 1 Biomass Mutation
  • While good early on in the league eventually this card was not worth it in the value focused version of the deck. Sometimes employed from the sideboard in low to the ground aggro matchups. Solid combat trick. 
• 1 Bojuka Bog
  • Eventually, evolved into a sideboard card against graveyard focused decks. Would consider mainboarding it thanks to synergy with the growth spiral as a very strong “gotcha” moment. 
• 1 Bounty of the Luxa
  • So slow I would not play in this in even the most casual multiplayer edh. Card is not worth the cardboard it’s printed on. 
• 1 Cultivate
  • Solid ramp spell, but not good enough in later interactions of the deck. 
• 1 Darkwater Catacombs
  • Mediocre land, easy cut. 
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
  • Land acting like its ramp. Don’t believe the lies, just play real ramp you’re in green. 
• 1 Exotic Orchard
  • Good early league mana fixing, outpaced by other later options. 
• 7 Forest
  • Dropped for snow basics (see the snow upgrades section) 
• 1 Foul Orchard
  • Mediocre mana fixing. not worth it in the long term. 
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
  • Mediocre mana fixing. not worth it in the long term. 
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
  • Land acting like its ramp. Don’t believe the lies, just play real ramp you’re in green. 
• 1 Grismold, the Dreadsower
  • Not worth playing in a morph deck. Barely worth it in a token deck. Hard pass. 
• 1 Hex
  • Suffers from the same problems as Decimate. By the time you want to answer this many creatures you can just play a board wipe.  
• 5 Island
  • Dropped for snow basics( see the snow upgrades section) 
• 1 Jungle Hollow
  • Mediocre mana fixing. not worth it in the long term. 
• 1 Mire in Misery
  • Edict effects are rarely useful when going up against non voltron style strategies. Giving your opponent the action of choosing what they lose is the biggest issue, assuming you are not casting this into them LITERALLY only controlling their commander. 
• 1 Myriad Landscape
  • Mediocre mana fixing. not worth it in the long term. 
• 1 Pendant of Prosperity
  • This card is utter garbage. Even in a hugs deck this card is likely not worth it. Currently using it as a coaster on my desk. 
• 1 Rayami, First of the Fallen
  • If you are interested in playing a color shifted Kathril, Aspect Warden; then this is your legend. If you are wanting to do literally anything else consign this to the oblivion of your bulk trade binder. 
• 1 Road of Return
  • This is one of those cards that WoTC clearly puts into a commander precon knowing that its going to see solid casual play. A redundant, and possibly recurable, version of Command Beacon for Green is a solid card, but not very useful in this particular deck. 
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
  • While Steve is seen as ubiquitous in many green based edh decks, I find it not worth it when unable to recur it several times over the course of a given game. 
• 1 Scaretiller
  • In case you ever wanted a worse Solemn Simulacrum that gets better if it somehow doesn’t die in combat this is the card for you. 
• 1 Secret Plans
  • A solid card during the early stages of the league, but eventually it didn’t do enough to warrant its slot. 
• 1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
  • Only stayed in the deck as long as it did because it less of a terrible land as Temple of the False God, if you prioritize fixing early this is going to be an early drop. 
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
  • Land acting like its ramp. Don’t believe the lies, just play real ramp you’re in green. 
• 1 Simic Guildgate
  • Mediocre mana fixing. not worth it in the long term. 
• 1 Strionic Resonator
  • While this seems like a good value engine card, at the end of the day its a bit mana intensive for upside you could get by simply filling your dark with another morph this card was wasting the slot for. 
• 1 Sudden Substitution
  • A multiplayer minded card that becomes far too clunky to use in a meaningful way in 1v1. And, honestly, in multiplayer it’s not that great there either. 
• 1 Sultai Charm
  • Modal spells are always good, but at the end of the day this one just wasn’t good enough to last long in the deck list. 
• 3 Swamp
  • Dropped for snow basics (see the snow upgrades section) 
• 1 Temple of the False God
  • Trash, I don’t need to speak more on this card being a waste of carbon
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
  • I argue these kind of spells aren’t even worth playing in multiplayer (unless you are playing into a table that will actually be tempted), so in 1v1 they are a waste of space. 
• 1 Tezzeret’s Gambit
  • Solid card draw, replaced with Gitaxian Probe as it was more efficient. 
• 1 Thespian’s Stage
  • Too clunky for inconsistent fixing. 
• 1 Thieving Amalgam
  • Solid card but too slow for the value based gameplan. Sometimes brought back in from the sideboard in the event of grindy match ups.  
• 1 Thought Sponge
  • Not worth it as a combat trick, worth it even less as an inconsistent card draw spell. 
• 1 Thran Dynamo
  • Solid mana rock, too slow when adding signets. 
• 1 Trail of Mystery
  • A solid card during the early stages of the league, but eventually it didn’t do enough to warrant its slot. 
• 1 Urban Evolution
  • Solid simic cantrip, the land upsides were not enough when other options that cost much less were available. 

The Adds

The Adds are a simple category that I don’t think merits exceptional introduction. They are the cards that were added to the deck after The Cuts. For your convenience I will organize them into categories for ease of consumption. 

Snow Cards

The snow element of the deck allowed this deck to bake into it with key adjustments two very powerful cantrips (which I explain the utility of below), while also leading to a very unique personal experience. 

• Icefang Coatl
  • Deathtouching flash snake that also draws a card, what’s not to love?  
• Arcum’s Astrolabe 
  • Its such good mana fixing its banned in modern, pauper, and legacy. Drawing a card is just a happy modern horizon accident. 
• x5 Snowcovered Swamps
• x5 Snowcovered Forest
• x3 Snowcovered Island

“value” Engine Cards

• Temple of Deceit
  • Great mana fixing, and scry 1 is more powerful than you imagine. 
• Temple of Mystery 
  • Great mana fixing, and scry 1 is more powerful than you imagine. 
• Temple of Malady 
  • Great mana fixing, and scry 1 is more powerful than you imagine. 
• Zagoth Triome
  • Great mana fixing, and it also functions as a cantrip (though rarely) 
• Fabled passage 
  • One of the best fetchlands on budget
• Reliquary Tower
  • Already in the deck, but hey I got a free promo so I’m counting it here. 
• Tomb of the Spirit Dragon 
  • Literally, the only source of life link in the deck. It saved my ass so many times I lost track. 
• Golgari Signet
  • Great mana fixing, and it makes dramatic reversal + isochron scepter possible. 
• Dimir Signet 
  • Great mana fixing, and it makes dramatic reversal + isochron scepter possible. 
• Simic Signet 
  • Great mana fixing, and it makes dramatic reversal + isochron scepter possible. 
• Oubliette 
  • Such a solid piece of removal that a large group of the field has very little interaction with. 
• Feed the Swarm
  • Black removal is always good, black removal that can also hit enchantments is too good not to run. 
• Deathsprout 
  • A kill spell that is also a ramp spell? What’s not to love? 
• Wilderness Reclamation
  • Untapping lands is a powerful effect, now imagine doing it every single turn: twice. 
• Mythos of Brokos
  • A regrowth plus a demonic tutor all baked into one. One of the most fun cards to resolve in the deck. 
• Muddle the Mixture
  • A counterspell that can also double as a tutor for a win condition. *Chiefs kiss*
• Counterspell
  • The OG, the one, the only. Counterspell.  
• Villainous Wealth
  • Got it much later into the season that I’d of liked, but a welcome addition for the games it got to see. 
• Search for Azcanta
  • Scry is strong, Surveil is stronger. A land that gets to do a small dig through time is unnaturally powerful. 
• Leyline of Anticipation
  • Flash is always good, especially when it helps you draw an extra card every turn.  
• Tidal Barracuda  
  • Flash is always good, especially when it helps you draw an extra card every turn. 
• Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
  • Flash is always good, especially when it helps you draw an extra card every turn; AND digs the top three for a creature to cast with flash. 

“win the game” cards

• Chord of Calling
  • While this spell does not win the game on its own, Chord of Calling for 5 mana leads to a snowball effect that either wins the game on the spot, or can at minimum put a Seedborne Muse into play at instant speed. 
• Emergent Ultimatum 
  • While again this spell does not win the game on the spot, tutoring your deck for three spells, two of which you can cast for free, is always going to big a game stealing move that in a 1v1 situation an opponent is going to be hard pressed from getting up from. 
• Isochron scepter + Dramatic Reversal
  • Infinite mana and infinite storm count are always going to be a game winning effect. At minimum it means that I can cast and cantrip my way through my deck digging for any and all value I need to close out the game. At maximum it means I win on the spot. 
• Tendrils of Agony
  • Either wins off of infinite storm, or it can be a top off to a series of cantrips to win a grindy game out of nowhere. 
• Leveler + Thassa’s Oracle
  • Combo famous from pioneer is just as potent in 100 card singleton as it is in 60 card constructed, especially when you can tutor either piece into play instantly through Chord of Calling.  

Cantrips  

• Tranquil Thicket
  • Mana fixing for green that can also draw a card when colors are already on line? Sign me up!
• Barren Moor
  • Mana fixing for black that can also draw a card when colors are already on line? Sign me up!
• Lonely Sandbar
  • Mana fixing for blue that can also draw a card when colors are already on line? Sign me up!
• Dig Through TIme
  • Instant speed dig 7 and get two cards?! That’s like a super cantrip!
• Return of the Wildspeaker
  • Both a combat trick and a cantrip that is always going to get you at least 2 cards, a truly versatile modal spell. 
• `Guardian Project
  • Combined with your commander in play this turns every single Morph into Yugioh’s Pot of Greed
• Growth Spiral 
  • A cantrip that can also get a land into play at instant speed, so much more than solid. If you are in simic you need to be playing this. 
• Opt
  • One of the standout cantrips in magic’s history that has never been banned. It’s better for us than we will ever know. 
• Zagoth Crystal
  • A mana rock that can also be a cantrip if the ramp doesn’t matter anymore? Sign me up! 
• Gitaxian Probe 
  • 2 life for 1 card? Absolutely! 

Morphs

• Weaver of Lies
  • Getting to reset your morphs is more value than you can possibly imagine. 
• Zoetic Cavern
  • A morph that is also a land makes for interesting combat tricks, and endstep “ramp” situations. 
• Brine Elemental
  • Combos with a card already in the deck to infinitely skip your opponent’s untap step. Disgustingly indulgent as a lockout. 
• Voidmage Apprentice 
  • Counterspells are great, a Counterspell hiding in your boardstate is so much better. 
• Echo Tracer
  • Bouncing your opponents commander over, and over again, is something you never thought you’d find more satisfying until you’ve done it with no less than four different creatures. 

The Alternate Wincons

1.  Dramatic Scepter + Storm:

 Well it wouldn’t be a Colin Turzai deck without going infinite somehow. So naturally after initially picking up efficient mana rocks to accelerate my game plan into the stratosphere I spent a week picking up Iscoron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal to add an infinite mana/ infinite storm combo. Including Mind’s Desire and Tendrils of Agony in the deck lead to the capacity to win the game out of nowhere at any point in the game after turn 2-3. While later in the league I would drop Mind’s Desire, Tendrils of Agony never left the deck; and likely won’t leave the deck as I improve the deck with non-budget cards.

2.  Thassa’s Oracle + Leveler:

At any point after turn 4-5 (assuming mana rock acceleration) this instant speed win condition of exiling your own library with Leveler, and then putting Thassa’s Oracle into play is very difficult to interact with (especially on a budget), except when going up against the jeskai cycling deck, which comes with Nimble Obstructionist in the 99 premade.

Thanks to the field being dominated by midrange /aggro decks this strategy while fragile was very successful towards the end of the season once store availability allowed the inclusion of Cord of Calling.

3.  Doomsday Pile:

I got the pieces for a sub optimal Doomsday pile in sulati colors towards the middle of the season: Gitaxian Probe, Thassa’s Oracle, Thought Scour, Dread Return, and any other one card. While I never felt comfortable deploying this combo when going up against the aggro decks I was often up against the good thing about the pile is that aside from Doomsday itself, the cards that made up the pile were all useful by default in the deck as is. Additionally, if I had experimented with the doomsday element of the deck more, I’m sure that it could have led to efficient assembly of the Thassa’s Oracle + Leveler combo.  

4.  Brine Elemental + Vesuvian Shapeshifter

Often called the Pickle Lock, or Brinelock, sequencing a flipping up of brine elemental followed by a turning over of Vesuvian Shapeshifter leads to a pseudo infinite loop of making a single opponent skip their untap step for the rest of the game. When used at a strategic point in the game (as demonstrated during my streamed game with BigDice) you can leave your opponent unable to meaningfully play the game by having all of their best assets (including their present mana base) permanently tapped down, and they are now at the mercy of top decking not just a kill spell, but the mana to cast it.

The overall strategy

Like with any deck the Morph Deck I cultivated over the course of season one is very simple to define in its core parts: play morphs, draw cards. While the overall play pattern of the deck is not that simple you can sum up the majority of my gameplay with that statement.

 Beyond that however the core skeleton of the deck was to be as efficient as possible (within the price point allowed) at disrupting my opponents game plan as often as possible until I was able to assemble a dominating board state that would grind out the game.

 This would be accomplished through the strategic use of bounce spells, and limited counter magic, as well as the utility of flipping up morphs themselves as built in long term tempo value over the course of the early turns of the game.

 A turn four kadena was instrumental in ensuring a successful game plan, and to coincide with that under no circumstances should morphs be deployed ahead of her, with the exception of [aura morph] as if it is already in play ahead of Kadena it could be used to save her from a kill spell after the cast of your initial free morph.

 The package of mana rocks accelerating into a consistent turn four kadena include the typical commander staples (sol ring, signets, etc), though due to budget choices I was never able to include talismans and mid season I dropped the thran dynamo that was included in the deck as a choice to thin my mana curve and allow for smoother gameplay.

 Finally, at the core of the deck’s strategy was the fact that I wanted to make as much of the deck functioning as a [1]cantrip as humanly possible. Every card that replaced itself in my hand was another card that would lead to dominating the battlefield, the stack, and the game as a whole. I even kept a logbook of the most cards I drew in a single game; and in a game mid-season against one of the other morph decks I was able to draw over sixty cards over the course of three turns thanks to the interactions with Guardian Project and manifesting all the creatures in my opponent’s graveyard through casting Ghastly Conscription with Kadena in play essentially turning each creature entering into Yugioh’s Pot of Greed.

The Regrets

 One of my few regrets about the deck was investing in the doomsday pile I never used. While in theory the inclusion of the strategy was sound; I cannot say with certainty it was a worthwhile inclusion.

Instead of including a doomsday pile I could have added more value again cards like my biggest regret: not including Temur Sabretooth.

 For most of the league I knew the card was something I wanted to include, but it never seemed like the worthwhile inclusion to put in, in place of cards I was dropping, or replacing to further optimize. It is something I will be including in the non-league version of the deck very soon, but it just never fit into my build path during the league; and I regret the value left on the table without its inclusion, especially post inclusion of Cord of Calling.

The Final Thoughts

 Faceless Menace at the time of its release was speculated to be one of the stronger between its release decks. As it has access to two of (in my opinion) the strongest colors (blue and black) in magic alongside the most pushed color (green) in recent years, even at a budget the deck is powerful, but linear. The deck has some difficult match ups, especially in a one v one situation, but if built to take advantage of [2]tempoing out the opponent and bypassing the paying of mana cost it can run away with a game very quickly and drown your opponent in value.  

[1] A card, or spell, that replaces itself in your hand after use; meaning that you net the same number of cards in hand before and after committing resources from your hand.

[2] A verb that in this case means making your opponent strategically lose advantage from their turn during yours. Often by bouncing a permeant they invested resources into creating, or making a powerful play no longer relevant. Can also be referred to as “time walking” by making your opponent have to essentially take their turn again, by redoing the same game actions as before.