Papa Nurgle's Chief of Medicine
Commander / EDH
1622 VIEWS
Third Experiment Progress —Feb. 20, 2023
Mortarion, Daemon Primarch is rather successful, thus far. While not as efficient or streamlined as Braids, Arisen Nightmare, Mort has done well for what he is: an underpowered legendary from a precon. The testing has been slow but successful, as I've been on-and-off tinkering due to life, and currently the deck is still sorted components of its prior iteration. I've decided to not roll it out for real play until I've settled on a direction and have at least ironed out some more kinks in the blueprint, so as to avoid unnecessary purchases. Once Mort hits the table and I start collecting real world experience things will become clearer. It's very clear he will not be going toe-to-toe with the group's heavyweights like Breya, Etherium Shaper or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, which neither surprises nor disappoints me. Mid decks that exist for fun speaks to me more than well-oiled and high octane contenders.
Where Mortarion, Daemon Primarch has gone right:
Fun: He's a joy to play, it feels good to hit people on the head a big Commander, and as I've delved deeper into 40K lore, Mort's one of my favorite Primarchs and he serves my favorite Chaos god, which we'll be coming back to here in a sec...
Strength: Mort hits like a truck. Throwing a stream of legionnaires at people is effective. It's not the fastest swarming strategy to start, but it does accelerate well and the damage is respectable. The tokens, thanks to menace, start becoming problems with even only 1 anthem or lord effect buffing them.
Resilience: Once the first ugly boys come down, it generally gets a lot easier to keep them coming, and as the stream increases, this leaves a pretty good wall of bodies to soak up counterattacks. It even rebounds from plain boardwipes well enough since part of the life loss strategy is based in noncreature permanents. The strategy focusing on tokens means they're replaceable by nature. This also is on theme for the Death Guard, relying more on crushing enemies beneath an inexorable march and pure resilience to win...with maybe a chemical weapon or two.
Uniqueness: Of all my friends and people I've talked to, there's been no shortage of intrigue and/or surprise that I'm building Mortarion. His ability is EDH bait but it's stuck to a pretty cost-unfriendly body, which is the biggest turn-off for those I've talked to. He also has not been well explored by the good people of the internet, and what lists I've seen have been...underwhelming to say the least. Loading up on life sinks without payoff like Blood Celebrant is effective and flexible but sterile and boring. At this point, brewing with Mort in itself is a plus because all others have settled for the low-hanging fruit.
Feeling Black: Of the 3 Commanders thus far, Mort feels most in line with the philosophy of his color. Ashling, the Extinguisher clunky, obvious, and inefficient. Braids, Arisen Nightmare, while far more efficient than the deck's founder, was wholly bland and made enemies by existing. Mort likewise may be a bit telegraphed, but his ability leaves open room for innovation. You can tap everyone with life loss, you can pay life to do combo-y black things, or you can pay life for general game state advancement, and Mort rewards you for all of it. It may not be the best of rewards, but as a cannon fodder Legend from a precon, he does a pretty good job.
Where Mortarion has gone wrong:
Slowness: Surprise, surprise, the 6-CMC Commander isn't fast and there are no outstanding answers to this. Splashing in a few mana dorks and cheap mana rocks helps quite a bit, but due to Mort's CMC, actually getting moving is rather sluggish, especially compared to his predecessor in Braids 3.0. This is the primary reason he's likely to be stuck at mid-level competition in the play group and I have no issue with that. We're pretty open about what power levels we want to play at, so it's not as though he's going to be thrown at Sliver Overlord and Orvar, the All-Form.
Underpowered: For how much he costs, Mortarion doesn't do very much. Churning out ugly boys during the End Step is great, but I always feel like he needs to be able to do just a little bit more. Distribute -1/-1 counters, be a lord of some sort, trample, something. It disappoints me, but he still does pack a punch and get things done. Also considering how the lore treats him, and it all makes sense. It's funny in a cosmic sense the way he got absolutely disrespected by whoever designed his card.
Life Loss Outlets: Outside payoff-less ones like Mischievous Poltergeist, there's a surprising shortage of ways to hurt yourself for a good reason. Cards like Staff of Compleation and Ancient Tomb are godsends. But. There aren't enough cards with low mana investment and practical payoff that involve life paying or losing while advancing your general game state. I'm avoiding spot removal because it's not really big in my playgroup, just an unspoken "read the room" sort of deal, although some amount is necessary. This sort of issue will be solved in time as more cards are released and more life-losing cards are printed. Eventually good ones will see the light of day. For now, the fun little trinkets like Lim-Dul's Hex and Tergrid's Lantern Flip will do just fine.
Risk: A deck built around bleeding itself, as you may be shocked to discover dear reader, runs the risk of actually getting itself killed. While frustrating it can be at times, it's not the end of the world. This is simply the nature of the beast, with which I am comfortable.
Flavor: Ashling had no flavor, so there was no issue. Braids 3.0 had less than no flavor, so there was less than no issue. For Mort, to the uninitiated MTG player, there's no issue here because he's a big demon boy that wants to yeet smaller ugly boys at you. But with even a cursory knowledge of Mortarion's lore, the lacking presence of plague, decay, and death elements are glaring (although his physical stature was well done in his stats). To this end, the current idea is to brew -1/-1 counters, poison counters, and widespread sacrifice effects to emulate the defining aspects of Mortarion, his ugly boys, and of course, Grandfather Nurgle. There's still much work to do, but Phyrexia seems like a solid font of cards with which this flavor issue may be solved, as Phyrexia's mechanics are fairly close to that of Mortarion's flavor. And even New Phyrexia fails to deliver the goods, these mechanics are regulars for black's wheelhouse, so it will only be a matter of time Mort gets the stuff he needs. I'll happily be activating Fevered Convulsions and casting Corrosive Mentor in the meantime.
Overall, I'm glad I switched to Mortarion, Daemon Primarch, and continue to have high hopes for his development. He just might be the one.