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[PRIMER] Morophon's Tribal Tribal

Commander / EDH Changeling Primer Shapeshifter

LandoLRodriguez

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Commander: Morophon, the Boundless

Artifact (9)

Enchantment (4)

Sorcery (4)

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Welcome to my Morophon, the Boundless Tribal Tribal commander/EDH deck! No, I'm not typing with a stutter! This deck aims to be a tribal deck where the tribe is... tribes!

The overall concept is to smash together all the best tribal anthems/buffs with changelings and create something of a "Tribal Toolbox". Hopefully then, in a very creature heavy way, every card that gets played each turn improves every other creature we control - and often in a very meaningful way. Eventually, by late game (and with the right support), The Commander itself can get any creature into play for free. We can then simply steamroll the table with an army of enormous, invincible, unblockable creatures of every type.

Below you will find my primer, detailing my game plan and rationale for the stuff that made the cut as this list brewed. I have yet to put this together to play, but I expect this will evolve over time and I plan to maintain this list. Any input would be most welcome, especially if there's any particularly weird/cool tribal effects I missed. Thanks for reading at least this far, and I suppose the first question I should answer is...

Morophon is one of those cards that the first time I saw it, I thought "There's something very cool to be done with this... I'm gonna have to build something around it." It could be good as a commander for literally any tribe one might play. You could make a mono-green Elves deck with Moro in the command zone if you wanted, and it could be serviceable. Of course, you won't be maximizing the value of its cost reduction ability that way. Moro at its most efficient needs to be five color. This means it could be an extremely powerful sliver commander, and while I am running several slivers, I didn't want to just do that.

I thought it would provide a more fun deck building challenge to try to put together my tribal toolbox by finding what I wanted across all tribes. While nearly all of the effects I want are available within slivers (and some only to slivers), in most cases they come with at least +1/+1 in other tribes. Running as many tribal effects as possible that provide keyword abilities alongside creatures that can benefit from all of them at once - including Moro, of course - should create a formidable board state.

Finally, taking full advantage of Moro's cost reduction ability means that some seriously scary bombs can hit the board very cheaply, if not for free. With the right cards in play, it means that any creature in our hand can be cast for free. If we're in that position, it hopefully also means we can draw lots of cards as those creatures enter, play more free creatures, and very possibly end the game very suddenly by playing our entire deck and being ready to attack with them that turn. That's the plan, anyway.

Moro brings a very unique skill set and as such should generate a very unique deck, or so I hope. Moro is my first 5 color commander, as well as the most expensive commander I've built so far. I'm starting with a whopping 45 creatures (way more than any other deck I've built), and only 5 non-permanents. Only time will tell if this will work, and hopefully by playing this deck I can learn some of the lessons Morophon has to teach.
Not usually the most exciting part of a deck, but worth discussion anyway. With the high cost of my commander and fairly high average CMC overall (3.72), I'm running 36 lands along with 5 mana rocks and a few other means of ramp. This deck currently skews Azorius ( makes up almost 50% of all color symbols in costs), but I kept the land mana pretty balanced and included some of the best methods of color fixing available. It breaks down like this:

One of each. This deck has the fun quirk of being a true singleton deck, but I definitely wanted to include one of each type of basic in the event of something like a Path to Exile or Assassin's Trophy and such.
Again, one of each. This includes of course

as well as the recently released

Relying on these lands that enter tapped does mean we might have to play a bit slow - which I don't love - but their upsides outweigh that drawback. I hope... Having 3 basic land types on each means not only are they searchable with Farseek (meriting its inclusion and one of only 5 non-permanents) and having all 5 basic land types in play should be achievable in most games. Good for not only color fixing but also enabling one of our mana rocks. More on that later. Cycling as an added bonus when drawn late-game.

Any 5 color deck should have some 5 color lands. The ones I'm running are:

  • Cascading Cataracts: Nice to have an indestructible source for all colors, although it does require tapping 6 lands to make 5 mana. This one might be replaced if it doesn't prove useful.
  • City of Brass: Not optimal that it dings you just for being tapped, so it still hurts if it's given another mana producing ability. Still really good though.
  • Command Tower: Requires no explanation.
  • Mana Confluence: Is a lot like City of Brass, except it doesn't hurt if using an acquired ability.
  • Path of Ancestry: More tapped lands, but since our commander is every creature type, it scrys every time it's used to cast any creature.
  • Reflecting Pool: should have no trouble making 5 colors by mid-game.
This deck will also be running a handful of tribal lands, meaning lands that have a creature type prerequisite to generate colored mana, either to cast a creature of that and/or use an activated ability. All such lands included here will also tap for without any dependency. So, these lands can, at the very least, tap for a colorless any time or tap for a mana of any color to cast a changeling. The list includes:

  • Ally Encampment: Likes the Ally type, unsurprisingly. Has an ally bouncing ability as a small added utility bonus.
  • Base Camp: Likes any of your party creature types (Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric). Besides changelings, our list included 4 wizards, 2 warriors, and 1 cleric. Despite the fact that it enters tapped, this one should produce lots of colored mana for us.
  • Cavern of Souls: The ultimate tribal land. You get to choose your tribe and it makes creatures cast using it un-counterable. Pretty effin' good. The card I'm least looking forward to having to acquire, but I'll be glad to have added it to my collection.
  • Secluded Courtyard: Is a lot like Cavern of Souls, minus the "can't be countered" bit, but plus usability for activated abilities. Seems pretty good.
  • Sliver Hive: Likes slivers. Has a bonus ability to make an [expensive] 1/1 sliver. is a lot to make a 1/1 with no abilities, but this could prove a good late-game mana sink.
  • Unclaimed Territory: Is also a lot like Cavern of Souls, but minus the "can't be countered" bit and plus nothing. Should still be ok.
The last land category is for the ones that will at least tap for , but more importantly provide some other sort of effect. These ones are:

  • Academy Ruins: While not particularly artifact heavy, there are some critical ones that we don't want in our graveyard. Running this land as a means to get them back is crucial. More on this later.
  • Contested Cliffs: Being able to have one of our creatures fight another for just can essentially be counted as removal, since we plan on our creatures having deathtouch and indestructible by the time we want to use this.
  • Mutavault: Becomes a 2/2 changeling. We like changelings.
  • Reliquary Tower: Any commander deck worth playing should include enough drawing power that this card is a must-have.
  • Swarmyard: A cheap way to regenerate our changelings seems like a good idea.
  • The World Tree: Provides excellent mana fixing once we're to 6 lands. I'm also eagerly anticipating the moment when I can use its big ability to put literally every single creature in my library onto the battlefield at once. I imagine it will be quite satisfying.
  • Unholy Grotto: A poor man's Volrath's Stronghold for zombies. This of course means for any changelings at any time and for any creature in our graveyard under the right circumstances. While I do own a Volrath's Stronghold, this card just felt more on-theme in this deck.
  • Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth: I've said it before, but I'll say it again: there's no reason not to run either of these cards in decks that are color appropriate. Especially so in this deck, where it will prove quite desirable for our opponents to have swamps and forests.
Always a good idea to include some mana that (should) put us ahead of curve, but also provides any color in most cases. The rocks included here are:

  • Sol Ring: to produce that same turn? There's a reason this card is in like 95% of commander decks.
  • Arcane Signet: to gain access to all 5 colors is pretty good.
  • Chromatic Lantern: Not only a 5 color mana rock itself, but also provides perhaps the best color fixing the game has to offer, even if stupid City of Brass will burn us no matter what.
  • Dragon's Hoard: Another 5 color rock in the CMC tier, plus provides some draw. Should be no shortage of gold counters.
  • Prismatic Geoscope: This is a really interesting card in here I think. It would be incredible if it weren't for entering tapped, but I still think it could outperform Gilded Lotus as a cost rock. As mentioned above, getting all 5 land types in play should prove fairly easy with all the triomes. Any 2 of them guarantees at least 4 types are represented. The fact that at maximum effectiveness it taps not only for 5 mana, but 5 mana in any combination of colors is awesome. Tapping to produce at once (something Gilded Lotus can't do) can be unbelievably meaningful under the right circumstances. I look forward to playing with this card.
There are some (myself included) that would assert that this is not really a tribal deck. In order to really be one, the overwhelming majority of the creatures in it need to be the relevant type. In this deck, the greatest of one creature type present is shapeshifters at only 14 of 46 (30.4%), including The Commander. Furthermore, the shapeshifter subtype is really little more relevant than the fractal, ferret, or oyster types are. What really matters is the changeling ability. While this ability does not appear on any non-shapeshifter creatures, not all shapeshifters have the ability.

The changelings in this deck are the pointy end of the stick. They're going to be how we actually win the game, as each other card that enters the battlefield adds some pointiness to the stick. By absorbing every tribal upgrade that enters play, even the most unassuming little changeling becomes a force to be reckoned with, and we should have a lot of them. Below is the roster of the changelings deemed good enough to make the cut, from the bottom of the mana curve to the top:

  • Changeling Outcast: Being unblockable is a powerful ability at any point in the game, and especially once it grows enormous.
  • Amoeboid Changeling: This ugly little fellow can let one of our non-changeling tribal leaders be a changeling for a turn. It can also strip something else of its creature types. That's gotta be useful at some point, right? Sure is ugly though.
  • Shapesharer: I can think of a bunch of ways being able to copy a creature onto a shapeshifter will be useful, especially since it can be repeated as long as mana holds out. Can even turn opponents' scary creatures into weapons against them!
  • Unsettled Mariner: Gives all our permanents ward ? That's pretty good.
  • Avian Changeling: The most vanilla of changelings to make the cut, but I always seem to need flyers in games. It'll be good to have one that doesn't need to acquire flying.
  • Bloodline Pretender: It's an artifact, which makes it extra searchable in this deck, and it gets bigger all on its own.
  • Ghostly Changeling: Having a creature to dump mana into to pump will prove useful late-game.
  • Mirror Entity: For just , this fella can turn all our creatures into changelings for a turn, and can make them even bigger changelings for more mana. This one's gonna be an all-star I think.
  • Realmwalker: This one's gonna help us dig for more changelings. This should be really good to, which is why it makes it into most other tribals decks in green.
  • Graveshifter: Lets us grab a creature back from the graveyard. There's not a ton of recursion in this deck but this one should do some work.
  • Irregular Cohort: Two 2/2 changelings is definitely better than one 4/4 for 4 mana
  • Cairn Wanderer: Can absorb keywords not only from tribal effects, but from the graveyard as well.
  • Valiant Changeling: Having just one other changeling out means this only will only cost for a 3/3 with double strike. Not bad.
  • and finally, The Commander itself! Pumps the team and makes some other very scary things cheap/free to cast. Long live The Commander!
If the changelings are the pointy end of the stick, the rest of the cards in this section are what do the sharpening. My goal was to include as many keyword abilities as well as important commander utilities (i.e. ramp/draw) as possible in the form of tribal buffs. In most cases, this ability also comes with a P/T boost as well. I've included some redundancy where possible, While the changelings will be able to absorb any and every one of these abilities, there will also be some synergy in this deck within individual tribes as well. Here's the list of which card each ability is coming from, as well as the tribe it works for, and what P/T boost it offers (if any):

Besides the fairly straightforward keyword abilities, there are some others that fit into more general terms as far as utility. Here's where I see the cards here fitting:

  • Pump the Team:
    Vanquisher's Banner (Chosen, +1/+1). Also draws cards.
    Sliver Legion (Sliver, +1/+1 for each other sliver). This gets out of hand fast.
    Coat of Arms (Chosen) Essentially the Sliver Legion ability, applicable to every creature on our battlefield.
  • Draw/Card Advantage:
    Risen Reef (Elemental) Each time a non-land is revealed.
    Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (Ninja) Each time a ninja damages a player.
    Atla Palani, Nest Tender (Egg) Cheats out a creature each time an egg dies. Also makes her own eggs!
    Gilt-Leaf Archdruid (Druid) On druid cast. Also has an ability that essentially ends the game for one player.
    Vanquisher's Banner (Chosen, +1/+1) On cast of chosen type.
    Kindred Discovery (Chosen) On ETB or attack of chosen type.
  • Ramp/Mana:
    Magda, Brazen Outlaw (Dwarf, +1/+0) Makes a treasure each time a dwarf taps. Can also tutor an artifact or dragon for 5 treasures.
    Manaweft Sliver (Sliver) Each sliver can tap for a mana of any color.
    Risen Reef (Elemental) Each time a land is revealed.
  • Removal:
    Necrotic Sliver (Sliver) Gives all slivers the ability to pay and sac itself to destroy any permanent. Provides a sac outlet besides the removal, in case that winds up being desireable.
    Reaper King (Scarecrow, +1/+1) Representing probably the most obscure tribe, destroys any permanent on scarecrow ETB. I really dig this card and can't wait to play it.
  • Direct Damage:
    Rin and Seri, Inseparable (Cat, Dog) Their activated ability should provide both damage and life in equal measure each use. Also makes tokens.
    Dragon Tempest (Dragon) Deals damage equal to our number of dragons on each dragon ETB.
  • Creature Tokens:
    Rin and Seri, Inseparable (Cat, Dog) Each changeling cast will net 2 tokens!
To this point, most of this description has been written in terms of how these things will affect and interact with changelings. They're the cards that are going to make the most of what this deck tries to do, and most of the rest of the deck is meant to support them. I hope that the altogether unintimidating Changeling Outcast I cast on turn 1 is a 30/30 indestructible hexproof deathtouch double strike flying trampler on a much later turn. Still, with only 14, there is something of an all-the-eggs-in-one-basket sort of situation going on here.

BUT WAIT...


What if ALL of our creatures were changelings?! Let's take a moment here to appreciate:


Maskwood Nexus

This is going to be that card that truly switches the deck on. It turns all of our creatures into changelings, be they on the battlefield, a spell on the stack, or in our hand, library, or graveyard. I feel the importance of this effect cannot be understated. Having Nexus in play is going to make this deck play completely differently. Instead of having probably only a couple changelings being pumped by a bunch of tribal support, now those supports are getting all the same pumping up... and that's not all. Having Nexus in play will accomplish all of the following for us (to be clear, this means for all of our creatures, not our opponents'):

  • All creatures receive all P/T boosts in play.
  • All creatures receive all keyword ability buffs in play.
  • All creature casts will trigger all type-specific cast triggers. This will be true for ETB triggers, death triggers, attack triggers, and tap triggers.
  • Realmwalker can cast any creature from top of the library.
  • All creatures can tap for mana with Manaweft Sliver.
  • Graveshifter can grab any creature from the graveyard, as can Unholy Grotto.
  • Swarmyard can regenerate anyone.
  • Any type-specific tutoring or digging for creatures can grab any creature.
  • All of our tribal lands can now produce colored mana for any creature cast/ability.
  • Finally, Morophon's cost reduction ability will apply to any creature we want to cast.

All this isn't quite strictly true, especially as far as the tribal buffs go. In most cases, the creature generating to buff is either not of the type that it's buffing, or it reads that "other" creatures of that type gain these abilities. The slivers hit themselves, as does Rick. Death Baron will give himself deathtouch once he becomes a skeleton with Nexus in play. Most importantly though, if we want ALL of our creatures to have indestructible or hexproof, we need to get both creatures that give that ability out.

None of this even mentions the fact that it also has an activated ability that produces a fresh changeling every turn for . That's a pretty good return, considering how formidable we're planning on making our changelings.

Anyway, it bears repeating: having Nexus in play is going to have a tremendous impact on the success rate of this deck. With this being the case, several slots are dedicated to making sure that happens. We need to dig it out of the library, make it difficult to get rid of, and we need to be able to get it back when someone who doesn't want what's best for us sends it to the graveyard. Here's how we're gonna accomplish that:

  • Find it:
    Demonic Tutor can of course find anything, if we've already found Nexus.
    Fabricate can find any artifact. There'll probably be some other useful artifact if Nexus is already out. Probably Reaper King.
    Enlightened Tutor can also grab enchantments!
    Coveted Prize could be really interesting. With a full party, it means not only finding Nexus, but also casting it, all for just ! That's some pretty solid value.
    Lastly, Magda, Brazen Outlaw can find it in a pinch.
  • Protect it:
    Padeem, Consul of Innovation will keep it from being targeted for spot removal, once our opponents realize its importance. He protects our other artifacts too, and those opponents probably aren't going to love our Coat of Arms or Vanquisher's Banner either. He might even draw us some cards too, especially if Reaper King (who technically has a mana value of 10) has anything to say about it. Nexus will still be susceptible to non-targeted artifact destruction, unfortunately. I think we'll be able to live with that though, since we're also planning on being able to
  • Get it Back:
    Academy Ruins puts it back on top of our library for just . A bargain!
    Emry, Lurker of the Loch will let us cast it from the graveyard every turn if we want. Hopefully she doesn't put it there herself with her mill ability and make us wait out her summoning sickness.
So by now, we've cast a bunch of changelings, and lots of tribal lords to befriend them. Then we turned them into changelings, too. Now everyone is everything and huge and terrifying. It's quite possible that this will be enough to win the game. If not though, what's the plan to finish things off? After all, getting the board state we want is going to take a lot of turns and a lot of mana and probably some luck. Plenty of time for responses to our strategy. Fortunately, Our Commander creates a unique possibility to get it all done in a single turn.

Moro's cost reduction has a really gross interaction with the zany ability shared by only Jodah, Archmage Eternal and Infinity Gauntlet... sorry, Fist of Suns. With either of those in play, you may choose to pay rather than the cost of spells. Moro will reduce the cost to cast creatures of the chosen type (i.e. any changeling any time, and any creature with Nexus out) by . That math is pretty easy to work out. There's plenty of routes to turn casting creatures into draw engines (Risen Reef, Gilt-Leaf Archdruid, Kindred Discovery), so it's quite possible that we cast every creature in our library in one turn. Almost all of them anyway, it could be possible to deck ourselves by trying to cast everything. Those creatures will all definitely be enormous, and the odds will be pretty good that they'll all have haste and all be unblockable. Leftover mana can be dumped into Mirror Entity to further pump the team. If we didn't have enough to end the game before, we sure do now.

While it will certainly be useful for other purposes, I've included Arcane Adaptation largely as an insurance policy to be sure Moro's cost reduction applies to all of our creatures in the absence of Nexus. Ideally, Adaptation will come out first and can name a creature type most applicable to the current board state (i.e. Druids if Gilt-Leaf Archdruid is out or Knights if Knight Exemplar is), then Moro names the same type later when it enters. We're aiming to have Nexus out all the time anyway so hopefully this won't be something we need to depend on.

I've also included a few top-of-the-curve creatures that are terrifying to have enter under normal circumstances, let alone when they enter into the Tribal-Nexus stew we've created. Even if not being cast for free, these come out way cheaper than what they're worth thanks to Moro and could single-handedly tip the scales to our victory. Assuming Moro and Nexus are in play, here's what these bombs will do:

  • Tiamat costs only to drop a 7/7 flyer out there, and grab any 5 creatures from our library into our hand. There are 6 creatures in here that will be entirely free with Moro, and another 12 that will cost only . So there's a good chance we can cast all 5 of the creatures we grab. Even if it's not our entire deck, this can probably be enough to win that turn.
  • Gishath, Sun's Avatar is still a bargain for . Digging through chunks of our library and skipping even having to cast the creatures we find will accelerate the endgame considerably. The chunks should be pretty big too, with all the P/T buffs that will likely be out by the time Gishath enters.
  • Progenitus because I don't think paying the still remaining cost will be that hard to do. It's just one tap of Prismatic Geoscope under the right circumstances. It'll just be funny to have a pumped up Progenitus with lifelink and double strike and of course protection from EVERYTHING. Probably enough to finish off one opponent per turn all by itself. Progy's in here partially though just cuz I've always thought it was a cool card and I finally found an excuse to play it.

Thanks for checking out my list, thanks in advance if you have some input, and feel free to +1 if you like where I'm going with this!

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92% Casual

Competitive

Revision 9 See all

(2 years ago)

Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

58 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.72
Tokens Cat 1/1 G, Copy Clone, Dog 1/1 W, Egg 0/1 G, Shapeshifter 2/2 C, Shapeshifter 2/2 U, Sliver 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders Z - FUNNY DECKS, Like, Tribals, EDH Decks
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