My logic includes the Rampant Growth effects (so 10 fetchlands + 3 growth effects), but I still count more ways to get lands than I do lands that can be gotten. Given the odds that you will draw into some of your fetchable/basic lands, you run the risk of ending up with cards in hand that cannot be used to do what you need (and make yourself extremely vulnerable to cards that hate on greedy mana bases). The reason I don't include them in the count is they can't be tapped themselves (unless you get Chromatic Lantern out, but I wouldn't rely on that), and when you use them they extract a tappable land from your deck. Essentially it takes two lands out of your deck to give you one land's-worth of mana. And given the costs of your win-cons, I think it's worth having the extra potential resources.

I'm not saying take all of them out, by any stretch, but I don't think all of them are necessary. I think it's a balancing act.

I like it, have you considered Heroic Intervention as a way to keep your board in one piece in case of board wipes/removal?

Unlife I think there's a strong argument for adding in more boardwipe protection, for large boards of morphs, for combat damage win strategies, and for the Phage instakill strategy. My plan for that is using counterspell morphs. Is there a benefit to running Heroic Intervention over something like Counterspell or Mana Drain? They can just counter the boardwipe or removal and also can be applicable in other situations. I guess everyone else's board would be wiped with Heroic Intervention? There's also probably something I'm missing knowing Magic lol. I feel like the versatility of a counterspell is better but I don't really know.

d_iros I'm sure there plenty of people who would argue one way or another, but I think it depends on your playstyle. Countermagic can be used to stop other things beyond board wipes, which makes them a bit more flexible. On the other hand, indestructible/phase effects can help keep your board safe while making sure your other opponents lose at least a bit of their board. In the end, I think it'll just be what you would rather have available.

Also, if your mana base can handle it, Alchemist's Refuge lets you cast any nonland with flash over just creatures with Winding Canyons for the cost of 2 colored mana vs 2 colorless.

Unlife

¿Porque no los dos?

Unlife

As far as adding in more boardwipe protection I'm leaning towards Mana Drain for it's versatility. What I would cut for it I'm not sure. I'm gonna mull it over and see how the current iteration of the deck performs before adjusting anything.

For Alchemist's Refuge I'm don't think my mana base can handle it unless I replace a utility land. I'm already dangerously low on basics and high on colorless only lands. My first instinct is to replace Reliquary Tower and I will for now. It's possible I may revert the change as I just amped up the card draw and Reliquary Tower may turn out to be more useful than it used to be. I also realized Alchemist's Refuge and Seedborn Muse make a pretty nice synergy too.

Could you explain the combo with cloak and phage? This seems wayyy too complex for my feeble mind to understand.

Sure thing! The primer is written for near absolute beginners after all ;)

Step 1: Cast Phage the Untouchable

Step 2: Equip protection as fast as possible

Lightning Greaves - Free to equip and can be attached the moment Phage hits the battlefield.

Swiftfoot Boots - Due to the equip cost I would consider carefully waiting a turn to cast Phage if it means having the mana to equip the boots instantly.

Whispersilk Cloak - 2 to equip but provides the necessary Step 3 in one package. It’s probably still a good idea to wait to cast Phage and equip the same turn. If this is on the board when you cast Phage someone might put two and two together.

Sometimes you’re just gonna have to just cast Phage and pray no-one removes her or rely on protection morphs to keep her around. This can be effective but is less reliable and less long term. What to do is a situational judgment call but if Phage gets removed it can easily turn a win into a loss.

Step 3: Make Phage Unblockable

Thassa, God of the Sea - Very hard to remove plus a nice bonus of repeated scrying if played early

Rogue's Passage - The most expensive way to get the job done. More mana available for morphs is always good.

Whispersilk Cloak - Protection and unblockable rolled into one equipment. See above.

Step 4: Kill everybody with Phage and pray nobody has a boardwipe or that you have an answer. Also, control the board as much as possible with morphs and removal.

hi! I loved this build so much that I made a budget list of it! lmk what you think ;)

Crouching Kadena, Hidden Phage [~$20] edition

Love it, great job. I had an extra feature token lying around so it should pop up on the front page a bit :)

@d_iros thanks man! great to hear that you like it! :D

I see Time Warp in the maybe board. That's something I added to my own list recently. Rather than casting Cyclonic Rift every turn for 7 mana (on top of the cost to recur it), which stops your opponents from building up a boardstate only until someone draws a counterspell or removal, you could throw in a Time Warp to just take infinite turns (2 mana less), and build your board until you hit a combo or enough combat damage to crunch everyone. Time Warp is also solid on its own, and especially along with the Quanar.

Scroll of Fate is a FANTASTIC card in Kadena normally, as it both lets you get extra morphs out for free, but also lets you turn unwanted cards like lands into morphs, triggering Kadena for draw, and making it more difficult for opponents to pick a target for removal. But in your deck, it can also act as a way to sneak through Phage.

Personally, I like Craterhoof Behemoth a little more than Overwhelming Stampede in my list, since the deck is much more likely to have a lot of small bodies than it is to have a big one. Most of the time a 3/3 is the best on the board, and that is unlikely to cut it. Plus, my list has more ways to tutor for creatures specifically, or recur creatures, so if the swing doesn't alpha strike everyone down at once, it's often able to perform the same trick again on the next go around.

yeti1069

The Time Warp is there as a possible replacement for Cyclonic Rift as you were so keen to notice. Thanks for taking the time to check out my deck so closely! I've been considering this replacement for a bit but after your input I think I'm settled on it.

As far as Scroll of Fate, it's a card I've been considering for a long time and that I think fits great as you've pointed out. I think I would cut a morph, likely Thousand Winds, but I'm still hesitant to do that. I'm gonna mull this one for a bit and play some more games before deciding.

With how this deck operates I think Craterhoof is an obvious upgrade. Can't believe I forgot about that guy.

Once again thank you for taking such a close look at my deck and also thank you for your help!

After playing and thinking about it more, Scroll of Fate is in and Thousand Winds is out. Another niche case for the Scroll in this deck is hiding Slimefoot before comboing off. If you manifest Thassa, God of the Sea can you flip her up? I'm going to look into this. Merry Christmas to any brewers reading this on the 25th

Yeah, you can definitely flip Thassa. She's a facedown creature, and doesn't check the other text until she's face up.

I happen to really like Thousand Winds, but it is basically the top of the curve, so it's a reasonable cut.

Yeah, I love me a good morph deck. Don't see many playing anything worth commenting on.

Thought the guy who started morphs might have made the list... Ixidor, Reality Sculptor. Adds a buff to your face down's and you only need to turn anything face up.

Liking the deck tho :)

Fuzzy003

I can't speak for d_iros, but I can say that I used to run Ixidor in my Kadena list. The problem with him is that he is expensive for the value he provides. I don't run a combat list, so the buff didn't really matter. I also noticed that his ability only really hit a few of my creatures. Most of them were already 3 mana or less to morph, so he didn't really add any value. Looking at this list he only hits 4 morphs, so I can't say that I'd recommend him here. Now in a list that focuses more on making face-down morphs bigger or has expensive morph costs, Ixidor can do some work.

Abzkaban Fair call. Probably more effective to add the Dream Chisel to make them cheaper to put in instead.

Fuzzy003

Yeah that’s one I’d recommend. I used to run it before I had to be really picky on my slots.

Fuzzy003

Ixidor was actually in the list for a good while when I was tinkering with how to win with Phage. The idea was to manifest Phage with Scroll of Fate, try to get an attack in, and flip Phage with Ixidron to take someone out. This was such a long shot for taking out one player and largely for the reasons Abzkaban listed were why I ended up cutting him. I had to make some hard cuts in my search for consistency and the combos and he was one of them. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I don't think I want to make any changes for Dream Chisel at the moment but I'll keep in mind how much I'm playing morphs without Kadena out and how much of a discount I'd be getting if I had Dream Chisel out.

+1 , REALLY good deck. Surprisingly good. Curious, given all of the various combo pieces, have you considered removing both Crop Rotation and slimefoot? In black, you have all the best tutors. You don't have any notably impactful lands like cradle, you best targets are rogue's passage, urborg or your flash land. Not to mention you can lose a land on counter. It's an okay T1 play, but I dont see that card slot being utilized fully with crop rotation. Utilize another black tutor or honestly just more draw and removal instead.

Slimefoot is nice, but I dont see the synergy in the deck outside the combo (perhaps Im missing something).

Profet93

Thanks for the praise! As far as Slimefoot goes, he is only a combo piece but he fits in well with the other combo pieces to bring two mold flavored finishers to the table, I don't see myself removing him for now.

As far as Crop Rotation you bring up good points. I brought it in as a second copy of Rogue's Passage with some utility upside, but you're right about its impact and I agree that more card draw or a different effect could better serve the deck. With the improvements in consistency and move towards including other combos, I'm not sure a 3rd source of making Phage or the Token unblockable is what the deck needs. I'm open to replacing it and if I do it would likely be something that could provide a single burst of card draw as I feel that is something my draw package lacks. Not sure what that would be yet but Peer into the Abyss is a fun idea.

Thanks for taking such a close look at my deck and for the feedback!

as a morph fan, yeah, ima try this deck , very very nice !

I feel Yedora, Grave Gardener could do some work in this deck.

Since you have a morph theme going on, when Yedora is in play any creature that dies comes back as a face-down creature, but is a forest face up, and you can pay the morph cost to bring the creature out, so it's like having ramp that feeds into creatures that refuse to stay down. Bonus is that when your commander is out, each creature that dies and comes back as a forest gets you even more card draw. Crazy synergy.

I bring it up because I've been playing Yedora lately with Forest Tribal, LoL, and it's fun. I love the look of your deck and now I wanna play that one, too! Thanks for sharing!

Slashdance

That is an interesting idea. I didn't consider Yedora at release because of the rules questions and ended up completely overlooking them. That's certainly a unique and powerful effect worth considering. I think I'm going to playtest Yedora as a replacement for Crop Rotation to and see how it goes.

Thanks for checking out the deck and for the suggestion!