Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Morph and Mask

I'm going to try a different approach to this post, and use it to troubleshoot a current deck idea I'm working on. The idea came to me while trying to make a FEB (Full English Breakfast) variant and TheStephenation suggested a morph creature.


The basic premise of the deck works around the errata on Illusionary Mask, which now states that "X: You may put a creature card with converted mana cost X or less from your hand into play face down as a 0/1 creature. Put X mask counters on that creature. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery. The creature's controller may turn the creature face up any time he or she could play an instant by removing all mask counters from it. This effect ends if the creature is turned face up". Traditionally, the use of this card is to bring in creatures with abilities that are a disadvantage when they come into play. The original intent was probably something to hide the creature so the opponent didn't know what it was until you were already dealing damage to them with it. But the new text on this card also simulates the morph ability. At first this doesn't seem like such an advantage, since most creatures with morph have a high converted mana cost, but what we're going to try to do today is use it with creatures that when they are turned face up activate an ability.

So, what creatures do we include in this deck? Obviously, we want creatures who take advantage of this technicality: since Mask doesn't required colored mana at all to function, the creatures themselves can be any color. We don't want to have a situation where paying their morph cost is more advantageous than using mask, since there would be no need for mask, so we'll generally be looking for creatures that cost 3 or less (I pick that number because morph generally costs 3 and if I was paying more to "morph" a creature it wouldn't become such a huge advantage).

Unfortunately, there are not that many viable cards meeting the requirements. These five creatures have the most potential. Fathom Seer is an obvious must for hand advantage. His steep morph cost is completely sidestepped with Mask. Frontline Strategist isn't going to turn the game around, but it can bide you one more turn to push out a win (a devastating surprise for a careless opponent). He also only one mana, which is a huge advantage for reasons I'll reveal later. Skinthinner is a great utility card. Hardcasting him is not really an option, even if we have a significant mana base, so he must be used in conjunction with Mask. And I'm not paying 8 for a terror, I don't care how many times it can attack. Voidmage Apprentice and Willbender are both great trap cards. They're almost identical in utility with small specific applications. I value Voidmage much higher, since I'd never sideboard him out against anything, unlike Willbender. I kept Willbender because of his morph cost being much much much more manageable.



There are a few creatures that we should consider because they do something when any card turns face up. Aphetto Runecaster and Aven Farseer are both great combo cards with mask. Aphetto is much more powerful, though I really wish he didn't cost 3U. Aven is a win condition, as well as having the right cost to disguise as other creatures.

Yes, Dreadnought is going into this deck. Could you imagine a better card for this deck besides it? It even goes along well with Mask's original design, hide it among other creatures so the opponent doesn't really know what it is until it's too late. This is generally your win condition.

Once Mask is in your hand, the deck really only needs colorless mana to run itself. This doesn't mean you should just run out and play Urza's lands. Instead I'd run some artifact mana sources in addition to multiple colors, but not too many to drown itself. I keep going back and forth between Sol Ring (for not hurting you and being reusable), and the appeal of substituting Mana Vault or Dark Ritual (Dark Ritual + Mask + Nought= 1st turn 12/12 trampler). The wise decision is to stick with Sol Ring.

The colors the deck uses are blue, white, and black, but because it only uses one black card I'd never want to morph or hardcast, omitting black from the manabase was easy. Blue is the obvious choice to run lands as, since you'll want to pull Aphetto out as soon as possible to either help you find mask or more creatures to use with it and hardcasting or morphing the others becomes an option. White is important to run, as it'll help Aven get as large as possible if you can cast him without mask, but not as important since you'll never need to hardcast strategist though morphcasting him is still an option. Obviously, Tundra makes dividing the mana pool much easier, which I'd support with Islands.

Finally, I'd include some kind of search for Mask. Since we're running blue and already have Sol ring, I'd suggest just using tinker to get mask into play ASAP. Combined with Seat of the Synod and Ancient Den, you should have no trouble finding artifacts to tinker with.

It's not the best deck ever, or even the best Masknought build, but it most certainly is fun and will win casual games

4x Illusionary Mask
4x Aphetto Runecaster
4x Aven Farseer
4x Fathom Seer
4x Frontline Strategiest
4x Skinthinner
4x Voidmage Apprentice
4x Willbender
4x Sol Ring
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
4x Tinker
4x Ancient Den
4x Seat of the Synod
4x Tundra
4x Island

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