Sorry for the double post, but to back up what I was saying about cutting black, it seems to be your most lackluster color. Kraum is a better just "I want more colors" partner, as he draws cards. You could replace Phage with the obviously much worse-but-along-the-same-lines Leveler, which is great with Fractured Identity and could have a place anyway, Vampiric Tutor becomes Long-Term Plans, again, worse, but still good. No Ghastly Conscription-esque replacements I can think of currently.

On the other side of things, red gives you Animar, Soul of Elements, AKA Animorphs, for all the free morphs. It gives you Kraum, probably better than Silas for the most part. Akroma, Angel of Fury is a big red morph-er, Dwarven Blastminer is on-theme land hate, and Skirk Alarmist, Ixidors worse cousin. I've seen animorphs lists run Jeering Instigator as well.

If you don't go for the switch, why no Bane of the Living? On theme wrath. You should also consider Strionic Resonator to copy some of the un-morph triggers.

@glembo
While Grim Haruspex is better for drawing because you don't have to pay the 1, I feel like Mentor of the Meek is better for snowballing. They are both good card draw options just with different purpose. I'll give Grim Haruspex a try, it is more flavorful.
While this deck is usually pretty slow, here is how I try and play in the early game.
In my opening hand I generally look for 2-4 lands, 1-2 things that ramp, and a manifesting engine (or a tutor to get one). On turns 1-3 I try and get my lands and mana rocks out (basically just play what you can), if I have the option to play my manifesting, I'll almost always play that over ramp . I generally won't play Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa during the early game unless I need to get in with Silas Renn, Seeker Adept or Jeskai Infiltrator. After that I will usually only spend around 1/2 or 2/3 of my mana during my turns and leave the rest for potential unmorphs. If I don't unmorph anything, I'll spend it on manifesting or hand/top deck manipulation at the end of my opponents turn.
I hope this helps, I'm not very good and explaining how I play.

@RazortoothMtg
Animar, Soul of Elements is normally amazing for morph, however I am only currently running 7 creatures with morph making him not all that useful. This deck has more of a emphasis on manifesting rather than morph. I have looked at all color for this deck and I thought red looked the weakest because it didn't offer any manifesting engines, or creatures that can one hit kill somebody. Black also offers more options for tutor including the transmute tutors which helps make this deck much more consistent. I do agree that Kraum, Ludevic's Opus dose make a better 'I need colors commander', but Silas Renn, Seeker Adept and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa work together quite nicely. Skirk Alarmist is probably my biggest pull towards red, but that just isn't quite enough.
I do really like the look of Long-Term Plans, might replace Fabricate with it.
I have to pump a good amount of mana into Bane of the Living for it to be worth it for me because it will almost always wipe out all my face down 2/2. Still might be a good board wipe option though.
Strionic Resonator has the same problem Animar, Soul of Elements has, not enough morph creatures.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!

@Exxie97

It does help, that's a great explanation thanks! If I have any other suggestions or ideas, I'll make sure to let you know!

Really cool deck. I run a much more classic version of morph deck with K&T as my commander and even more surprises coming out of sunforger. That Illusionary Mask is hilarious! I must have overlooked it every time I searched for "face-down" or similar keywords. Weird. Being able to turn your morph creatures face up just by tapping them seems almost broken. But just almost. ;)

If you need more carddraw, I'm kinda surprised you don't run Aphetto Runecaster yet. And since you want some stuff in the graveyard, Riptide Survivor may be something for you. More top deck manipulation service can be provided by Unblinking Bleb.

Darn, I forgot to link the Sunforger.

I get that you want the extra scry power but isn't having most of your lands ETB tapped a major impediment? What if you took the tri lands out and replaced them with Reflecting Pool City of Brass or any of the other pan-colored lands?

Granted, many of those will make you pain 1 to use them but it would make this play a lot faster

Looks like the oracle text of Illusionary Mask has a stipulation that if the face-down creature would become tapped, it is turned face-up first. Seems like you'd have to manifest Phage rather than use the mask to get her through :/ Super cool deck though!

Yeah that is a problem, and the only reason Brave the Sands is in the deck. Brave the Sands is a two mana card so you can tutor for it with the transmute cards. I might end up cutting them because it's just super awkward. But if the stars align and you do manage to get everything out, Illusionary Mask can still work pretty well.

onehitterquiter Thanks for pointing that out though, I need to add that quirk to my description.

Ebonblade Reaper, possibly? It seems like something that could be played in this deck.

So, have you seen Primordial Mist yet? It's like Whisperwood, but harder to kill and allows you to use noncreatures that get manifested. Seems like a perfect fit.

Spoiler Show

Oh also, sorry for double commenting, but some of the topdeck manipulation in the new Esper deck might be good. Haven't really looked at the spoilers, but Aminatou lets you set up your Whisperwood Elemental or Primordial mist manifest every turn, and her second ability allows you to turn creatures face up for free if you really need too, making her a good include, and definitely better than Venser, the Sojourner sitting in the maybeboard. Those new Commander Storm cards are good with partners, but none are super synergistic (Maybe the green one since you have so many big permanents? Kind of a non-bo with Phage tho).

On a side note, I've been considering building a face-down creatures (morph or manifest) and a friend recently building Ixidor, Reality Sculptor morph has made me decide on manifest. If I were to build this list, I'd cut Illusionary Mask immediately due to budget concerns (I own most of the other random expensive things, like tutor and Ugin due to other decks). What would be the first card you would slot into it's spot? And is Brave the Sands still worth playing without Mask, or would you cut that too?

@RazortoothMtg

I have seen the C18 spoilers and I am really exited about the new card that are coming with it!
This decklist currently needs to be updated as I have switched a couple things around. If you don't want to run Illusionary Mask I'd cut Brave the Sands as well. You might also want to cut Cryptolith Rite as well because I was mostly using it as a flipper for the mask. As for replacements I recently found a great enchantment for top deck manipulation, Mirri's Guile.

Just as a side note; after playing this deck more and more I've realized some problems with it. I found myself losing far to often to combat damage from standard EDH creatures (like a 5/5 flying for example), and while having low power creatures works in my favor for cards like Meekstone it really limits my wincons to one hit killers.

While Aminatou is great for putting cards back on top, I am more exited about Estrid as a potential commander for an evolution of this deck. The main difference I've been thinking about between this deck and its evolution is the abandonment of cards that limit me to 2 power (like Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa). Cutting of the power restrictions of this deck opens up a whole new world of one hit killers, creatures with infect; and with Estrid as a commander I could use the mask auras (which to me seems very flavorful) to protect my creatures when they attack in. I can also have a small enchantment sub-theme as Estrid cares about enchantment and many manifest cards are enchantments.

Of course if you don't like the idea of infect or Estrid as a commander, feel free to ignore my ramblings in that last paragraph.

@RazortoothMtg

I just realized I didn't answer your question very well. If you don't run the mask I'd cut:
Brave the Sands Just not worth the card slot without the mask.
Cryptolith Rite Unless you want it for the mana fixing/ramp.
Fabricate Basically just a tutor for the mask.
Tezzeret the Seeker Same as above with some extra utility.

As for replacements I found one off manifest cards to actually be quite good (like Temur War Shaman). I've had a lot of fun with Parallel Thoughts, helps to not mess with the top of the deck and has actually saved me from losing due to milling allowing me to steal back the win! Soothsaying is also just a really solid card, help and interacts with so many parts of the deck.

Unless you are hellbent on getting rid of the mask I would ask people you play with if it's fine if you use a proxy of it. Everyone I have played with is ok with me using a proxy of a super old janky card. But of course that choice is up to you.

Exxie97

I didn't even consider Estrid, but that seems like an interesting idea. The masks are pretty flavorful. I'd love to see a list if you ever do make one for her.

Cutting the mask is more for things like going to GPs and other sanctioned events. I could proxy it and just never play the deck at a sanctioned event (play it after FNM or something), but I just wanted to know what you would switch out if I wanted to make the deck 100% real.

Thanks for such a long response to my question!

I don't know if you're still playing this deck, but if you do, I'm just dropping by to tell you that I'm very much interested to see how you plan to ''evolve'' with the deck :D

Hey, I really like the idea behind this deck and will most definitely try it when I get the chance maybe considering some of the change cards you mentioned. I also really like the format you chose to present everything.

Would you change anything with the manabase if you had access to every land you want? Just thought maybe some dual lands oder shock lands?

+1 for that deck!

Exxie97 Great list that looks fun. How does paying the mana cost to turn up creatures works for you? I have a (quite janky) morph deck myself and paying the morph cost for turning creatures face up really hampers board development from my experiences.

@EsperPanorama, yeah that was a big problem in the old version of this deck. I tried to add more lower CMC creatures to counteract this but it didn't fully fix the problem. I try not to unmorph alot because the main strength of face down creatures in my eyes is that your board could be anything! It is very hard to preform threat assessment on a face down board, and as a result, at least in my playgroup, people tend to go after the player with the most value or threats on board (which is almost never me). The fun part for me while playing this deck is suggesting what a facedown creature could be and making my opponents play around possibilities, then only unmorphing to stop a game swinging play or to go in for the kill.

@Granum I would probably add some variety of fetch lands if I had them, I'm just a little wary of land that hurt me as they turn off Felidar Sovereign and hamper Serra Avatar/Evra, Halcyon Witness.

Hey Exxie97!

Wow I'm excited to be here!! When I found this decklist it was almost like looking at my own deck! For a really long time I went with Thrasios and Sidaar, bringing lots of morph to the table, but since my playgroup had quite high powerlevel I had to shift into a manifest & flicker theme. My deck was built around sneaking in big things with manifest and then flickering them up in an opponents endstep, therefore relying more on etb effects and big permanents like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Sphinx of Uthuun and Soul of the Harvest. By then I felt like I had to switch out the commanders for Roon of the Hidden Realm to make space for Manifest/Lifegain/ETB themes. Although getting the powerlevel up, I feel like I've lost the original idea with the sneaking and making threats.

For me, your decklist gave me inspiration to go in a more hatebear approach in the future, probably cutting a bit part of the ETB theme since it will be a bit of a "nonbo" anyway. I espescially like your include of Pygmy Hippo!

What I would recommend you is to include stuff like Seedborn Muse, Wilderness Reclamation and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds to be able to respond more efficiently and be able to flash in Felidar Sovereign or use Mastery of the Unseen in every other players turn. One last tip is an underrated wincon that nobody expects if you succeed in manifesting it, and that is Shaman of Forgotten Ways. The faces of control players when they suddenly drop to 0 life because of them having 0 creatures on board is hilarious.

It's nice to see how great minds think alike, keep beeing awesome!

//Serpej