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Hello! It's nice to see you all again!

As you may of may not know, I'm a big fan of Magic Online. My account name is shimichin2005. Recently, a new strong Standard deck has appeared on MTGO: the now-infamous U/B Pickles deck.

U/B Pickles plays a lot of Blue morph creatures. In the early part of the game, it defends its position with countermagic, and building up a decent supply of lands. Eventually it plays a number of morphs... which, of course, are hidden information and thus extremely problematic for the opponent. Suddenly, a lot of cards are drawn or targets are changed, or opponents are Stasis-locked. Vesuvan Shapeshifter, in combination with other powerful morphs, is a potent combination indeed.

Here is a sample decklist from MagictheGathering.com:

U/B Pickles Featured by Naoki Shimizu on 2007-02-11 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13647.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Dimir Signet Creatures 1 Brine Elemental 4 Fathom Seer 4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter 2 Willbender Instants 1 Careful Consideration 2 Mana Leak 2 Mystical Teachings 4 Remand 3 Repeal 4 Rewind 2 Spell Snare	Legendary Creatures 3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Basic Lands 15 Island Lands 4 Desert 3 Dreadship Reef 2 Watery Grave	Sideboard: 2 Serrated Arrows 4 Bottle Gnomes 1 Brine Elemental 1 Draining Whelk 1 Commandeer 1 Mystical Teachings 2 Shadow of Doubt 2 Spell Snare 1 Trickbind
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

I think this deck is very strong. Why? Because the lands are awesome.

Dreadship Reef is very good against control decks, as Makihito Mihara proved in the final of the World Championships. Desert is great against Soltari Priest, Savannah Lions, and Scryb Ranger, which are very popular these days.

If we look back at morph in days gone by, we remember Exalted Angel was ridiculous, when the mechanic was fresh and shiny around four years ago. But she was so strong that everyone realized that each morph played was “obviously” Exalted Angel... as soon as they saw a morph, folk knew what was coming. This meant morph was an uninteresting ability.

However, U/B Pickles plays 4 different types of morph creature.

Fathom Seer
Brine Elemental
Willbender
Vesuvan Shapeshifter.

Imagine that you're playing Boros Deck Wins, and your opponent has played a morph. He has two lands untapped, and five tapped lands. You have a Seal of Fire, and some creatures in play. Of course, I think you want to kill the morph... after all, if it's a Brine Elemental you won't have next untap step. So you sacrifice Seal to the morph... right? But what if it's a Willbender? Or a Fathom Seer? It's easy to become beguiled by the options, and make mistakes. Such cases hardly occurred when Onslaught Block was legal in Standard, but now it often does. This characteristic is the major strength of morph creatures.

Blue provides the best tools to search your library for creatures card, thanks to the Teferi and Mystical Teachings combo. (If you didn't know this already, it'd be good to learn this now: if you have Teferi in play, your creatures in your library have flash.) Overall, U/B pickles is considered to be a stable combo deck. Thus, as I enjoy playing such decks, this deck is awesome.

In Japan, the Urzatron is very popular. Morph creatures are very nice with Tron (imagine playing a morph through a powered-up Urza's Tower), and nowadays there are more Brine Elementals in our metagame than Bogardan Hellkites. Can you believe this?

The strength of morph, morph creatures, and the morph decks in general is now becoming apparent. Next, I'll share a few sample Vesuvan Shapeshifter scenarios that may crop up in competitive play.

Situation 1

Your opponent controls Bogardan Hellkite. You have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in your hand, and seven untapped Islands / Swamps in play.

Do you play Vesuvan Shapeshifter with morph? No!

For this simple scenario, it's best to play Vesuvan Shapeshifter face-up, paying its full mana cost. Use it to copy your opponent's Bogardan Hellkite, as the “comes-into-play” ability of the Bogardan Hellkite triggers. Therefore you can kill your opponent's Bogardan Hellkite, or even your opponent if he is sat at five life.

Situation 2

You have Teferi in play, and your opponent controls Mystic Snake. Yes, you have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in hand again. Your opponent has just played Spectral Force. You must counter it... Unfortunately, you don't have any countermagic in hand! What do you do?

Thanks to Teferi, your Vesuvan Shapeshifter has flash. So, play it and copy Mystic Snake. Then the ability of Mystic Snake triggers... and it counters the Spectral Force. Of course, you may turn it face down your next upkeep. What do you like to copy next?

Situation 3

Your opponent controls Teferi. You want to deal with it, and he wants to keep it from being killed. You both have a lot of mana available. Needless to say, you have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in hand. Besides this, you have Fathom Seer.

Your opponent is representing countermagic...so which you should play first?

I think you should play Fathom Seer first. Your opponent doesn't know it is a Fathom Seer. He must think it is Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and counter it... because if it is the Shapeshifter, the Teferi is toast. Once your opponent sees the results, he'll cry.

After that, you can play Vesuvan Shapeshifter with morph. If it resolves, you can kill Teferi by copying Teferi, thanks to the Legend rule.

Situation 4

Your opponent controls Triskelavus.

Of course, you have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in your hand and 3UU open.

If you play Vesuvan Shapeshifter with morph and copy Triskelavus, you will get an overpriced version of Flying Men. There'll be no +1/+1 counters on that bad boy.

Instead, bring The Shapshifter in face-up, copying the Triskelavus. If you do, you will get a perfect copy, tokens and all. And what will happen if you turn it face-down in your next upkeep?

The answer is...you have 5/5 morph!

Copy Serra Angel afterwards, and you will get a 7/7 Serra Angel!

Situation 5

Your opponent controls Scragnoth. Not surprisingly, you have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in your hand. Scragnoth has protection from Blue. Can Vesuvan Shapeshifter copy Scragnoth?

Yes, it can. Protection or “can't be target” doesn't matter, as the ability doesn't target. It can happily copy a Simic Sky Swallower.

Situation 6

Your opponent controls a Plague Sliver.

This time, you've already played Vesuvan Shapeshifter as a face-down mystery creature. Your opponent plays Sudden Death, targeting your face-down Vesuvan Shapeshifter. Does it die?

Not if you have 1U open!

You can turn it face-up even if Sudden Death is on the stack. The ability then copies Plagues Sliver, and the Shapeshifter survives.

As an additional note, it is very important to remember that you can change the target of Split Second spells with Willbender.

...

I'm pretty sure that you now know Vesuvan Shapeshifter is no longer a crap rare. In addition to this, I'm sure that you want to know how to deal with morphs. After all, every creature has a weakness...

Here is a list of cards that are useful against morphs:

Vesuvan Shapeshifter
This may seem strange, but piggy-backing on the morphs of you foe can be incredibly effective.

It's very simple. If your opponent plays a Brine Elemental, simply copy it with your Vesuvan Shapeshifter. Your opponent will never be able to untap his mana again. It is also a nice idea to copy an opponent's Fathom Seer. Therefore your opponent cannot turn their morphs face-up without fear... which will put a massive crimp in his game-plan.

Spell Burst
The converted mana cost of a morph is 0. You can counter them for a single Blue mana. Besides, Spell Burst can be bought back for three. If you have 3U, you may be able to counter all the morphs. Just be wary for opponent's counterspells, especially Remand.

Repeal / Disembowel
This uses the same logic as the Spell Burst point above. You can Repeal or Disembowel a morph for a single U or B. You can see what the morph is after resolving Repeal, and that information will help you a lot. But never forget that they can turn it face up and change its mana cost.

Magus of Scroll
Of course two-damage spells are good against Morph... and I think that Magus of the Scroll is the best. All the other burn spells, including Sudden Shock, can be Willbent. However, the Magus's can't be deflected with any conviction. If your opponent tries to Willbend the ability, simply name an obsolete card on resolution, and that's that.

“I name ‘Mossdog.' Wanna pick a random card?”

Seems fair.

Seize the Soul
Right now, no one plays Black or White morph creatures. Seize the Soul so great that it can kill two annoying morphs with just a single card.

Castigate / Nightmare Void / Persecute
Generally, you'll not see the face-up version of a morph in play... but you can glean this information if the morphs are still in your opponent's hand. This information can be a very helpful indeed, as I mentioned earlier.

Nightmare Void is very difficult to deal with, because Hinder has quietly passed into Extended Heaven.

If you can resolve Persecute against Pickles, you will win quickly.

Boiling Sea
Pickles contains a lot of Islands, in order to maximize the use of Fathom Seer. That means Boiling Sea is lethal for them. This card can kill them very easily.

...

Aside from the new Planar Chaos cards, are there any good cards that helps (or hinders) morphs? To conclude, I'll introduce some of the new cards that can help in this battle

Chronozoa
While it doesn't have morph, it is still very good with Vesuvan Shapeshifter.

If you turn Shapeshifter to copy Chronozoa, you get a Chronozoa with no time counters. That means that, when your Shapeshifter is dead, you get two copies of Chronozoa. Obviously it is difficult to prevent two Chronozoas from multiplying further... but of course, be aware of Wrath of God (and Damnation).

Shaper Parasite
I'm not sure if this card is great in Constructed, but it is clear that can kill creatures. I guess this creature is stronger than you expect because it has toughness of three.

Timebender
If you insist on playing this, you must change the focus of your deck completely. There may be a deck, somewhere out there in the Aether, that contains a lot of suspends or vanishings, and Timebender + Vesuvan Shapeshifter to help them... maybe not in Standard but in Block Constructed does loom.

Riptide Pilferer
It has morph, but you may find yourself playing this as a 1/1 for 1U more often that a mystery 2/2 for 3. Of course, this guy is good against control decks. If you play this face-down in the later half of the game, your opponent may think “this is Vesuvan Shapeshifter... which must be countered at all costs!”

Damnation
It is quite clear that Pickles will play this. Pickles was not very good against fast beatdown builds, but Damnation will help them out a great deal in this regard.

There may be more morph-centric cards that I didn't list... either way, we can see that the Morph cards of Time Spiral block are tricky in the extreme. And of course, there will be some folk out there embracing Morph culture, while others will be shunning it.

Either way, I'm sure there are still plenty of morph tricks to be concocted, and morph-killing techniques to be found. Discover them yourself, and enjoy!

Until next time,

Naoki Shimizu