High Perfect Morcant -1/-1 Counter Elves

Commander Overview

High Perfect Morcant is easily one of the most hyped commanders from Lorwyn Eclipsed. For good reason, combining a strong board control ability with a creature type as strong as elves is such a good commander, not only for mana, whether we give our opponents -1/-1 counters or we buff up our stuff, it is very strong. Morcant can come down early and be an extremely threatening presence throughout the whole game. A truly pushed commander that pushes the strength of an already busted creature type to the limit. Morcant is the real deal and an amazing commander for our deck.

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is very straightforward, especially if you have played other elf-focused decks before. Spamming our creatures out and filling the board is the name of the game. We also love using our commander on turns when we have a ton of mana, which is pretty easy for us to do since we are in Elves. We produce mana in high quantities very often. Other than being strategic with our commander, we are just a typical elf deck. We do have a few cards that include poison counters, like Infectious Inquiry, which is a draw spell and can allow us to poison counter kill an opponent if given the opportunity and enough time. This deck is quite easy to play, and the gameplan is straightforward overall.

Synergy’s in the deck

Elves are arguably one of the most synergistic creature types in the whole game; they all feed off of each other, and with duplicates of powerful effects likePriest of Titania and Elvish Archdruid, we can produce mana at an alarming rate. Another aspect of the deck that synergizes well with Morcant is token production from spells like Elvish Promenade or cards like Lathril, Blade of the Elves. We can produce a crazy amount of elves, not only helping our board but devastating our opponents. This deck works perfectly with itself.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Unlike a lot of decks, our early-game is still quite strong for us. It is still in the early stages of the game. Still, we are easily able to get ahead and speed Morcant out early with cards like LLanowar Elves or Elves of Deep Shadow. If we have enough mana, we can easily get Morcant out and devastate our opponents’ boards with some early-game blight. This is something we can do quite consistently.

Mid-Game: Things start getting very out of hand by the mid-game. If we can stick Morcant on the board, we can easily control the board and remove our opponents’ stuff. This is also the part of the game where we typically have enough mana that we can easily dump our hand and truly overwhelm our opponents in combat.

Late-Game: The late-game (if we even make it there) can be very nasty for our opponents, by this point we are pretty big and can easily drop cards like Craterhoof Behemoth or Overwhelming Stampede and one-shot the whole of the table, opponents are pretty low typically by this point so we don’t have much trouble here. The gameplan here is the same as the other stages of the game: control the board with Morcant and ruin our opponents’ days while we continue to build our board and hit hard.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

Ramping is a huge part of our deck, not in the traditional sense. Still, we do have so many ways to produce a crazy amount of mana like Priest of Titania or Circle of Dreams Druid we can cast a lot of stuff very easily in this deck, its not uncommon for us to be able to cast our entire hand after just a few turns with our big ramp creatures out.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We aren’t super heavy on card draw. Still, we have a couple consistent sources of card draw that are great for the deck like Beast Whisperer which can trigger a ton and with all of our mana production we can chain a lot of creatures in the deck, we also have Vanquisher’s Banner this being colorless is a huge advantage for our deck it can be dropped very early and put in work for the entire game. While we don’t have a ton of sources, these two can put in overtime for the deck. Lastly, I want to focus on Sylvan Library, which is card draw but more often than not card selection for our deck, and still very strong for a card that can come down early.

Removal

Morcant is a large part of the removal in our deck, because of that, we don’t have a ton of traditional removal spells. Being able to blight often and then proliferate on top provides a lot of removal for the deck and can even allow us to take out indestructible creatures like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. We do have some traditional removal like Atomize, which is a little pricey, but the extra proliferate can be huge for our deck and keeping our opponents from doing anything. Since we can ramp into Morcant quite early, we can often have Deadly Rollick online, which can be a great surprise for our opponents, perfect if our opponent plays a combo creature! We round out our removal package with Beast Within and Assassin’s Trophy, both cheap and strong ways to remove problematic stuff our opponents have.

Protection

Morcant is a big target for our opponents, i totally understand why, they can dominate the game very easily, we aren’t super heavy on protection mostly because we have so much mana production that paying the tax a lot on Morcant is something we can very easily do, but we do have a few sources of protection like Heroic Intervention which can allow us to be the only board after a board wipe which is a great position for us to be in. Wrap in Vigor is another great piece of protection for the deck if a combat goes bad or there is a board wipe. While we are light on protection, I had little trouble in my testing games.

Utility / Support

We have so many support cards in the deck I’m just going to focus on some of my favorites, one of my favorites in the deck is Galadhrim Brigade with all of the mana production in our deck we can use its squad ability a crazy amount of times which not only fills our board but Morcant triggers a crazy amount of times, against token decks or decks with small creatures we can easily wipe their board with this. Galadhrim Ambush is another card that has a similar effect but provides a Fog effect as well, just a great piece of utility for the deck.

I also wanted to mention our small infect package. We aren’t super focused on this, but with our huge emphasis on proliferate because of Morcant, these cards are great ways to take out opponents if combat isn’t a good option. I love Infectious Inquiry card draw for decently cheap and poison counters for our every opponent, which can make our infect gameplan very easy to execute. If we are going wide and focusing more on a combat game plan, we can use Tainted Strike as well for either a one-shot or getting the ball rolling on an opponent. Our infect package is quite small but can be effective, especially if combat is not an option.

I also wanted to focus on cards that are just great for the deck, like Tale of Katara and Toph. We have so many mana dorks in the deck, and being able to get counters when they tap, especially with Morcant, allows us to go insane when we proliferate, which is quite often. Dionus, Elvish Archdruid has a similar effect as well, but is considerably better since they untap the creature, allowing us to get double activations out of insane mana cards like Priest of Titania.

Mana Base

We don’t have a super interesting mana base, but it is very efficient for the deck. I do love Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth since it works extremely well with Elvish Champion, and giving this deck unblockable makes us an extreme problem for our opponents. Other than that, we are just efficient and have easy ways to get both of our colors. We are green-focused, which is why we are not running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Other than that, we have a ton of easy ways to get our colors, like Verdant Catacombs. Our mana base is great for our deck, and I had no trouble with it.

Win Conditions

Combat and Infect are the primary win conditions in the deck; for the most part, it is only combat that we typically win with. We are great at clearing our opponents’ board with Morcant and just swinging out and hitting hard.

Strengths of the Deck

Morcant gives us a great matchup against creature decks since we can clear the board so easily.

We are great at filling up our board and can be very hard to defend against and attack into.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Morcant is a huge removal magnet since they can take over games with ease.

Control decks can beat us up since we can have trouble recovering if we can’t resolve strong permanents.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Lathril, Blade of the Elves. Matchup Record: 4-2

This was a good matchup for our deck. Lathril can be nasty, so keeping some blockers up is key in this matchup. If we stick to our game plan and keep Morcant out, we won’t have too much trouble.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Beast Within, Elvish Champion and Champion of Lambholt.

Game 2: Vs Vivi Ornitier. Matchup Record: 1-4

This was a tough one; the only game I was able to pull off a win was when I was very aggressive and fast. They have a lot of board control stuff and removal/counters that can really hurt us. Vivi has crazy mana production as well, enabling them to do some crazy stuff. Not a good matchup for the deck.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Beast Within, Beastmaster Ascension and Prowess of the Fair.

Game 3: Vs Giada, Font of Hope. Matchup Record: 3-0

I had no trouble with this matchup. We are just a lot faster than Giada. If they can get to the late game, the matchup can be a little tougher for us, but it’s not very hard overall.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Priest of Titania, Dionus, Elvish Archdruid and Beastmaster Ascension.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! When Morcant was spoiled, I knew this was gonna be a great card when it was spoiled, and after testing, everything I thought about Morcant was correct, just a true powerhouse of a card and one of the best elf commanders in a long time.