Hello folks and welcome back to the casual tour. I am your guide, showing you all of the sights as we continue our journey. Today, I want to build some Morningtide decks for you…
Bring on the decks!
Creatures (28)
- 4 Nightshade Stinger
- 4 Auntie's Snitch
- 4 Earwig Squad
- 4 Latchkey Faerie
- 4 Oona's Blackguard
- 4 Stenchskipper
- 4 Stinkdrinker Bandit
Lands (24)
- 4 Underground River
- 11 Swamp
- 9 Island
Spells (8)
This is a multiplayer-friendly prowl deck. In order to win in multiplayer, you have to be able to kill multiple opponents. The problem with a normal aggressive strategy is that you often die out when you have killed one player, leaving you unable to handle the rest of the table.
This deck is different.
You want to lead with a Stinger if possible, but having a one-drop was not so important that I ran the other two. Then you have several good prowl creatures — Auntie’s Snitch, Latchkey Faerie, Earwig Squad, and Stinkdrinker Bandit.
At the multiplayer table, there is almost always someone that you can hit with your early creatures. Hit them, and prowl out the next biggest one you can. Keep amping up. Hopefully, you’ll be able to take out a player before too long.
Oona’s Blackguard helps later rogues, and it is good to drop it early. Stenchskipper is a great finisher, coming down well before other dragons. Swing with it for a couple of turns, then trade with a Shivan Dragon or Yosei.
Distant Melody is included to keep you going. I’d like to have found a couple more spots for it, but the creatures I included are all vital.
Note that Auntie’s Snitch is especially good in multiplayer, when a lot of removal can sometimes get tossed around the table. Self-recurring creatures are marvelous.
You have Notorious Throng to kill multiple players at the table. Kill a player with your aggro, then prowl this out, getting around 8 or so additional creatures. Between your cavalcade of flyers, and your chance at having beef like a Stenchskipper or Earwig Squad out, you should be able to kill another player. Then you have two options:
Prowl out another Notorious Throng, drop 16 more faeries, and take yet one more turn, killing another player or two.
Prowl out a Knowledge Exploitation, ideally finding a Time Warp or Time Stretch. Otherwise, go for things like Denying Wind, Searing Wind, and so forth. Keep going.
Either way, your deck’s late game prowl spells are nasty enough to keep the aggro deck going. That will make your deck good enough in multiplayer to take out your opponents.
Even though you can prowl for less with the Banneret out, I chose not to run it. The prowl cost is cheap enough and I didn’t want another 1/1 mucking up the deck.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Mogg Fanatic
- 2 Goblin Snowman
- 4 Warren Pilferers
- 2 Wort, Boggart Auntie
- 2 Earwig Squad
- 2 Lightning Crafter
- 4 Stenchskipper
- 4 Weirding Shaman
Lands (24)
- 4 Sulfurous Springs
- 10 Swamp
- 10 Mountain
Spells (12)
This is a Standard legal deck that leaves behind the classic goblin aggro deck and embraces the control side of goblins as evidenced in Lorwyn block.
All three tribal spells are removal spells, thus making for a solid slate of creature kill. Recurring any of these with Wort is pretty good.
Your creature base includes some major hitters. Stenchskipper reprises his role from the above deck with more beatingness. There are even more goblins here to keep him alive and kicking. Also reprising a previous inclusion is Earwig Squad, which can prowl out with a hit from a goblin.
There are some great control creatures here. Mogg Fanatic is a classic goblin. Play him early and help the prowl on the Earwig Squad. He’s also a great adjunct to your removal and a good choice to recur with the Pilferers or Wort.
Warren Pilferers are a personal favorite of mine. As a beefy Gravedigger, they can contribute to the red zone, and since all of the creatures in this deck not named Stenchskipper will give it haste, you can also get a free hit in. I would prioritize getting back Wort and Lightning Crafter.
Lightning Crafter is a great card because it can champion a Warren Pilferers to return it if it dies. You also get a great tap ability that can control the table or kill an opponent quickly.
Finally, I tossed in a couple of Goblin Snowmen, just to mug up the ground. Having a creature that can block the big guys is handy, and despite its large casting cost, it slides into the deck well.
There are a lot of other cards you could run, from Boggart Birth-Rite to Mad Auntie to Nameless Inversion to Boggart Harbinger. Open this up past Standard and you could grab Goblin Matron for sure.
Creatures (16)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (14)
This is another Standard deck for your consideration. This deck is rare heavy and I’d understand if you couldn’t put it together, but I’m comfortable using expensive cards when they are needed, and this deck needs Garruk.
Ideally, this is how the deck goes:
First Turn — Elf or Birds
Second Turn — Play a Black land
Third Turn — Garruk — Either untap to save him from burn/attackers, or put a creature in play if you don’t fear that.
Fourth Turn — Using Garruk to make two extra mana, you now have available to you seven mana, allowing you to Mind Shatter away your opponent’s hand, drop a nasty creature, or Profane Command for 5 life and kill a creature so that Garruk’s 3/3 can get through.
This assumes you did not drop another Elf/Birds on Turn 2 or 3, which is very possible. If you do that, you can drop Avatar of Woe on the fourth turn with 8 mana.
From there, it’s easy to see how this deck works. It plays big nasty creatures, and then swings with them. It can recur dead nasties with Profane Command, draw cards with Harmonize, and take out the emergency creature, artifact, or enchantment when needed.
Other options for this deck include Ohran Viper, Liliana Vess, Wall of Roots, Verdant Force, Verdeloth the Ancient, Shriekmaw, Quagnoth, Plague Wind, and Krosan Grip — and those are just Standard options. There are tons more if you open it up past Standard.
The beauty of this deck is that I included some cards that are highly valuable in multiplayer, like Cloudthresher and Avatar of Woe. This deck can succeed at the multiplayer table.
Note that with four Changeling Colossus and four Llanowar Elves, Gilt-Leaf Palace has a good chance of coming down untapped. A great first turn play is Gilt-Leaf Palace, Llanowar Elves.
The Changeling Colossi are included not only because they can allow you to roll with an untapped Gilt-Leaf Palace, but also because they are a cheap creature to drop, and can be inflated as you have mana. For example, Birds, Elf, Garruk leads to an 8 mana fourth turn. You can play Harmonize and Changeling Colossus for a powerful fourth turn.
There may be times when opponents sweep away your mana creatures and kill Garruk. The Colossus gives you a beater that you can play without being under ideal circumstances.
Alright, let’s take a look at another deck.
This deck is built around the clash engine and the “return to your hand” engine cards.
In order to work, it has to use a small number of cards to keep the card at the top of your library that will best help for clash. In this deck, we have a strong number of cards that will do just that.
We begin with the classic Sylvan Library. When you have this out, you can see three cards a turn and choose the other two that go on top of your deck. Draw the best one, then set yourself up for a clash with the next card on top of your library. Simple.
Sensei’s Divining Top does essentially the same thing, but requires a mana investment. It can work after a card drawing spell or a bad clash resolves, fixing your deck as needed.
After that, I have Cream of the Crop. This won’t do anything with a Fa’adiyah Seer, but the other creatures will like it. Giving rid of some of the cards on top of your deck is very handy for Tops and Libraries.
The Fa’adiyah Seer itself is brilliant here. Put a land on top of your deck with Top, Cream, or Library, then draw it with the Seer. It’s a free card every turn, just about. It can also essentially mill a card if you don’t draw lands, to help you get to the good stuff.
I also have two each of two clash engine cards. Rebellion of the Flamekin likes clashing. Once you have played it, you can get 3/1 creatures for one mana each. It doesn’t even require you to win the clash. These creatures can then trigger Cream of the Crop.
Sylvan Echoes will draw you a card whenever you win a clash. Since this deck is designed to win a lot of clashes, that should be a large parcel of cards. All of these cards drawn will get you to the good stuff sooner.
Then the deck has a lot of clash cards. There are 18 creatures or spells that involve clash. Six of those cards are reusable, which increases your clash count. Recross the Paths can help get your land out and gets one or more cards off the top of your library for Top/Library/Crop action.
Titan’s Revenge is your winning condition. With your Seers and multiple Recrosses, you should have ample land to start nailing people for serious damage. When you do, you’ll likely get this card back for future uses, and each time you trigger the Echoes and Rebellion.
Then you have Lash Out, a perfectly acceptable clash card that can take out creatures in the early game as well as trigger your clash enchantments. Joining it is Gilt-Leaf Ambush, with the potential to give you two creatures, kill two attackers, and nets you a clash. Finally, you have Nath’s Elite and Fire Juggler. I felt we needed to add to the creature count of the deck. These guys bring the clash and the body to the table.
With all of this deck manipulation, it will feel really different playing with this deck. You’ll find a lot of your cards early. I wouldn’t play two Echoes, because you don’t want to deck yourself. I would play the second Rebellion, so you can double your creatures. There will come a time when your lands are all gone, and Seers are useless then. You can still play Recross the Paths to trigger clash cards, but the Seers will be 1/1 creatures with no ability.
You might want to include something like two Primal Command in order to keep your deck going and prevent your being decked. Other options include Vexing Arcanix, Mirri’s Guile, Brutal and Feral Deceiver, and more.
Enjoy!
Creatures (8)
Lands (26)
Spells (26)
This complex deck uses the interaction between Nightshade Schemers and other faeries cards, namely Faerie Trickery, to create a winning condition.
In order to win with a Schemer, you have to keep from dying, and this deck throws up a virtually impenetrable wall of permanents designed to shut off the ability of opponents to touch you. Ivory Mask keeps them from targeting you, allowing you to shrug off burn and many removal spells, like Edicts, that might get around your stuff.
Fountain Watch protects your artifacts and enchantments, provides a blocker, and is a backup creature in case you have need. We also have Privileged Position and Sterling Grove to protect your stuff. The combination and interaction of all of these effects creates a group of permanents that simply cannot be targeted and thus removed in any way.
Island Sanctuary will prevent all but flyers and islandwalkers from coming your way, but you have to skip drawing a card, which is fine, because you want to keep that faerie card on top of your library for the game.
Mystic Decree takes away flying and islandwalking from all creatures. That means your Fountain Watch is a much better blocker and Island Sanctuary shuts down all creatures.
Sensei’s Divining Top combines with Sterling Grove, Idyllic Tutor, and Enlightened Tutor to give us a suite of cards that will help us find the right answers, as well as ensuring we have a faerie on top of our deck when the time comes.
There are ways to foil this deck, so we have Faerie Trickery and Negate. We don’t care about countering creatures, normally, so playing Negate is fine. Faerie Trickery works with the Schemers as well as serving a good role as a hard counter for any spell you might dislike.
Some of the ways to attack this deck include mass removal like Akroma’s Vengeance and Tranquility effects, untargeted direct damage like Hurricane and Earthquake, and effects like Innocent Blood and Barter in Blood.
Since some of these cards don’t see much play, your deck is pretty good. Others see a lot of play, and you’ll need counters.
It should take ten turns to kill everybody at the table, once you have set up — assuming all goes right.
There are other methods you can use in supplement to your winning condition. Agent of Masks kills half as quickly, but doesn’t require a faerie on top of the deck. If you want an enchantment-based option, look at Subversion.
To return after a major sweeping removal effect, you could consider Replenish. This would be especially useful with a Subversion or two in the deck.
Other cards you might consider along this theme include No Mercy, Aurification, and Moat.
If you want to survive mass removal, pull the Fountain Watch for Leonin Abunas and add Forge[/author]“]Darksteel [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] and Mycosynth Lattice to the deck. At this point, the deck has become a Haddix deck by making this change.
Even more cards to consider include Platinum Angel, Worship, and Solitary Confinement. The Confinement would keep the faerie card at the top like Island Sanctuary does, and it prevents all damage, which is a nice plus. You need to tweak your deck to find a way of giving you a card in your hand to discard without disrupting your deck. Something like Oversold Cemetery might work, but you’d need to tweak your deck even more for that.
I typically don’t want to build a deck around a card when a better option exists, because then a better version of that deck exists. Building around the fragile Schemers might seem like a bad idea, until you realize that they deal two life loss a turn, instead of one like some other options. That additional life loss is pretty important.
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I hope you have enjoyed the five decks I brought you today. From obvious builds like Prowl to unobvious builds like the one you just saw, I hoped to have given you a deck that you like enough to try out. I wish you luck in your deckbuilding adventures.
Until later…