By Wizbane on Monday, February 11, 2002 - 03:18 pm: Hi Jacob.
I understand the overall benefits of Morphling, and I'm seriously considering it.
My choice of Multani was basically done on other things.
1. It can't fly. Ok, 1:0 for Morphling, no doubt about it.
2. It is a worst blocker than Morphling, due to the latter ability to untap and to fly. 2:0 for Morphling.
3. See point 2. The ability to pump Morphling in defense is important in blocking other creatures and surviving. Still 2:0 for Morphling in my twisted mind.
4. It is untargetable, by default. Multani scores on this one, 2:1. The ability of Morphling is conditional (since it requires additional mana to be used), and this can be an advantage in certain situations. You need the ability only when required after all. But can be a bad thing on some others, when you are unable to pay the mana costs (for many possible reasons).
5. Multani doesn't kill in 4 turns. This is a difficult comparison. Actual playtest shows that 6/6 are the medium values possessed by Multani but this is strictly metagame dependant. This is another one for Morphling I think, therefore 3:1.
6. Multani too is supposed to kill a 5/5 blocked creatures *if it don't flies*, and this is not even guaranteed. The scores remain 3:1 for Morphling (again, in my twisted mind) just because this point regards a consequential thing of previously listed benefits of Superman.
7. Multani is green. Can't be pitched to FoW. Another point for Morphling, so we're at 4:1.
(altough I really should point out that pitching a morphling to FoW in my deck wouldn't be a great idea, since that creature slot (Multani or Morphling) is an important winning condition.
8. Multani is green. So it doesn't require blue mana to be cast. And this can be extremely important based on the deck you're toying with.
In Keeper, every mana is blue. No difference. And Keeper has 4 force of will cards to back up the casting of Morphling and plenty of blue cards to feed up the FoW.
In my deck, there are 2 Force of will cards, and to back up the casting of a Morplhing (or Multani)
I dont' have many cards to pitch, so a traditional counterspell is the most common method ---> and I need 2 blue mana to do this. Morphling requires at leas three blue mana to be properly played, this means I must have a mana base of 5 blue mana available the turn I play the card. I've playtested it and I usually didn't get good results, expecially against permission decks.
Also, when we come to actual play (I refer mainly to the Keeper deck, similar in that it has a single devoted slot, max 2 in some versions), Morphling is 90% of the time played as a winning condition (at least, I've played it in such a way 90% of the time).
This means Morphling is basically used as a 3UUU casting cost untargetable creature, with an upkeep cost of 2U or 2UU (pumping+immunity or pumping+immunity+flying) that wins in 4 turns.
So my conclusion is: Morphling is a better creature, but is it a better choice over Multani in my deck? And what about Zephid (4UU, blue, flying, 3/4 untargettable)?
By Jacob Orlove on Friday, February 15, 2002 - 12:49 am: I think I the real issue in the morph/multani debate now. Your problem was that you did not have enough consistent blue for morphling in your mana base.
However, a quick glance shows that you are only using 6 lands that don't produce blue mana.
My conclusion: you may not be drawing enough land altogether. You have 22 land, 3 birds, 3 rituals, and 1 lotus petal, for a total of 31 "mana sources." However, only 25 of those sources stick around, and only 22 have no summoning sickness, too (as well as being immune to opposing creature kill).
Basically, you should try replacing the birds, rituals, and petal (no longer necessary w/out the other 2) with lands and maybe some artifact mana that "sticks" (like fellwar stone). You could even add some Mishra's Factories if you're worried about the number of win conditions (especially against mono-blue-can't counter this 
). Try doing this, and you should find that you have enough land for morphling.
Next, although you have four mana drains, you have no stroke of genius or braingeyser (or fact or fiction, which circumvents the weirding)These are both strong cards (even uder weirding-they can't pay 10-20 life to stop 5-10 cards) that can also turn into win conditions late game (oh look, you have 10 cards in your library, and I have 15 lands ). With more card drawing, you should get to your lock sooner.
Finally, one last card. Hypnotic specter. With this and birds, you are actually hurt by abyss/balance/fire/etc. Taking it out means that your opponent will draw useless cards, and that helps you win. In addition, unless I misconstrued the deck, it's not really trying to go all-out aggressive, or even aggro-control, this is a control/lock deck, and your card choices should reflect that. The specter, while strong, does not have great synergy with the rest of the deck, and should really be replaced with more defesive/lock cards.
Card suggestions: since you lost some "fast" mana, try adding more cheap cards that help keep you alive early (like stp).
Before you respond, try playing a few games with these changes, and see how the deck works. if you don't like it, change back. It's not worth winning if you don't enjoy the game. But if you find that, in some ways at least, the deck functions better and more smoothly, experiment, and stick with some of the changes.
By Jacob Orlove on Friday, February 15, 2002 - 01:56 pm: Oops. That should have been 29 "mana sources"
By Jacob Orlove on Sunday, February 17, 2002 - 02:34 pm: Wizbane? You here?
By me on Thursday, February 28, 2002 - 10:36 pm: let's move this to the top of the mill so that wizbane might actually respond? any chance of that?
By Wizbane on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 10:51 am: Lands (22)
---------------------------
4 City of Brass
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Savannah
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 .... (Wasteland or one more black mana?)
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
Blue (11)
----------------------------
4 Mana Drain
3 Counterspell
2 Force of Will
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Zur's Weirding
Green (7)
-------------------------------
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Sylvan Library
1 Regrowth
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Multani Maro Sorcerer
White (7)
-----------------------------
2 Sword to Plow.
2 Disenchant
1 Balance
1 Replenish
1 Academy Rector
Black (9)
--------------------------------
3 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's will
1 Mind Twist
1 Necropotence
Artifact (2)
-------------------------------
2 Ivory Tower
TOTAL 58 CARDS, 2 to go
I'm not the fastest answering guy of the net, I know. Real life issues.
Nevertheless, here is my latest built.
Basically I'm still thinking about Morphling over Multani and I haven't modified my mana base. This is a UBGW deck, there are no secondary colors. So I need those birds. I make a clear distinction between mana acceleration cards and mana sources in a deck. Even if birds suffer from summoning sickness, they're a faster mana source than a land. Three mana sources 2nd turn instead of two mean a lot. The only better choice over birds IMHO are moxes but I don't have them.
Birds have also some very small advantages thank to their creature status: Multani + Bird makes Multani immune to Diabolic Edict, a bird is removable to Holistic to take Multani back from the grave. Also a bird can block an attacking creature, giving me one more turn to deal with it if needed.
About the Dark Rituals. I don't count them as mana sources at all. They are just mana acceleration cards. I have Necro and Yawgmoth Will. Three rituals seem a good choice to me.
I've been playing some games vs Enchantress lately and now I'm testing two cards: Replenish and Academy Rector. I'm quite happy with both of them.
Lotus Petal is gone, as are the two hippies, even if I miss them with those three rituals in the deck.
I have 2 free slots now. Some cards under consideration: sol ring, zuran orb, abundance, 1 more land or anything that will come to mind.
Thanks
Wizbane