[Spoilers] Breaking Commander at it's fundamentals with Moritte of the Frost

[Ertai Planeswalker]

SPOILER

Show

Hide

Ok so maybe that title is a little presumptious, but a fundamental principle of Commander is that you only get to run 1 copy of each card, and Maritte, being basically a Clever Impersonator in the command zone, allows us to break that rule. Now I've been pondering a clone deck for a while but could never really find a good idea to base it on, because just running a bunch of clones as the ultimate scaling deck did not appear that much fun to me, nor did some Volrath, the Shapestealer infect build.

So enter Moritte. I want try and build around her using non-legendary cards that have active synergy with themselves, where having two of them is greater than the sum of their parts. Think of something like Biowaste Blob, which actively works with itself. However, compiling such a list is not that easy, as it's not a specific word you can scryfall for. So that's where I want to ask all of you for help to come up with such cards that in the end, hopefully, also support one or two more or less cohesive themes (though I might ask for too much here).

Also, even though it might not be the most powerful thing to do, I feel this would be a deck that can pull of a Biovisionary win so I'm definitly adding that one in.

First pass:
Agent of Treachery
Biogenic Ooze
Biowaste Blob
Bloodspore Thrinax
Branching Evolution
Cloudpost
Pathbreaker Ibex
Death's Presence
Doubling Cube
Doubling Season
Fraying Sanity

[Mookie]

If you want to build Moritte of the Frost, I think that necessarily begs the question 'why not Sakashima of a Thousand Faces + any green partner?' Both allow you to clone your own stuff, but the extra partner would allow for additional utility. This necessarily implies taking into account the abilities Moritte has that Sakashima doesn't. More specifically, the additional +1/+1 counters, snow type, and ability to copy noncreature permanents. On the other hand, Moritte also doesn't negate the legend rule, which means copying legendary permanents like Gaea's Cradle and planeswalkers likely isn't a good strategy.

That said, Simic has a lot of powerful enchantments to copy, in addition to all the miscellaneous value creatures. Off the top of my head.... Mana Reflection, Zendikar Resurgent, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Rhystic Study, and Doubling Season are all pretty silly to copy. Other interesting options include Palinchron, Nyxbloom Ancient, Birthing Pod, and Avenger of Zendikar.

[kirkusjones]

Scute Swarm scales pretty quickly with itself and you're in UG, so hitting six lands won't be tough.

[BeneTleilax]

Biovisionary
Faerie Miscreant
Chrome Replicator
Basically any sliver.

[Sinis]

That said, Simic has a lot of powerful enchantments to copy, in addition to all the miscellaneous value creatures. Off the top of my head.... Mana Reflection, Zendikar Resurgent, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Rhystic Study, and Doubling Season are all pretty silly to copy. Other interesting options include Palinchron, Nyxbloom Ancient, Birthing Pod, and Avenger of Zendikar.

I feel like if you stick some of the more powerful cards here, you've already won. Having a Moritte-copy of Nyxbloom Ancient is kind of overkill.

[Dunharrow]

If it were me, I would not build around cloning creatures. The uniqueness of this card is the ability to clone other permanents.

You could do a Coat of Arms thing
You could do an enchantress kind of thing and copy Rhystic Study or Zendikar Resurgent or something like that.

I would pick probably about 10 non-creature non-legendary permanents that would be amazing in duplicate and build a deck around those.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

I would pick probably about 10 non-creature non-legendary permanents that would be amazing in duplicate and build a deck around those.

That is exactly the plan (though probably a little more than just 10).

What I'm looking for is card suggestions. I get that having 2 Zendikar Resurgents is better than 1, but then this would turn into just another simic goodstuff deck featuring clones. What I'm looking for is cards where 1 +1 = 3.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Scute Swarm scales pretty quickly with itself and you're in UG, so hitting six lands won't be tough.

That one's cute. It's basically doing all on it's own what I want to do with other cards as well.

[Dunharrow]

I would pick probably about 10 non-creature non-legendary permanents that would be amazing in duplicate and build a deck around those.

That is exactly the plan (though probably a little more than just 10).

What I'm looking for is card suggestions. I get that having 2 Zendikar Resurgents is better than 1, but then this would turn into just another simic goodstuff deck featuring clones. What I'm looking for is cards where 1 +1 = 3.

It's a challenge because you want non-legendary cards in UG that are really good in multiples.
I feel like you are going to go towards anthem effects more than anything. Coat of Arms, as mentioned. The ooze lord you mentioned. These kinds of effects scale well.
you could do merfolk as there are a lot of lords.
But then, if you are cloning creatures it would make more sense to use Sakashima of a Thousand Faces as your general.

but other cards that scale well would be Avenger of Zendikar (each land grows plants by two).

Personally, I would probably go more towards Zendikar Resurgent, Panharmonicon , Mind's Dilation , etc.

[Sinis]

Okay, I think I was being dismissive in my earlier comment where I said if you stick a powerful card, you've already won.

I think there's way more to Moritte than meets the eye.

While not exactly "1+1=3", something like Metallurgic Summonings paired with denial could quickly become overwhelming. A tribal deck could double up on Vanquisher's Banner and (the aforementioned) Coat of Arms.

Doubling up on Mechanized Production could win you the game very fast, or if you're playing an upkeep oriented deck, two Paradox Hazes for triple upkeeps.

There are also quite a few value cards you could double. Court of Bounty, Progenitor Mimic, etc. Or Enchantress's Presence in an enchantress deck.

I think you're on to something here; there are clutch cards for a lot of archetypes that would enjoy another copy. I think you can achieve some critical mass in addition with Clever Impersonator and Mirrormade.

[Hawk]

It's a little boring, but I'm always a fan of cloning Master Biomancer, especially a clone that increases its own power to then increase the power of everything else.

[BeneTleilax]

Just spam Master of Waves or Master of Etherium.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Due to work i have not been able to spend much time brewing, but I have not abandoned the idea.

Okay, I think I was being dismissive in my earlier comment where I said if you stick a powerful card, you've already won.

I think there's way more to Moritte than meets the eye.

While not exactly "1+1=3", something like Metallurgic Summonings paired with denial could quickly become overwhelming. A tribal deck could double up on Vanquisher's Banner and (the aforementioned) Coat of Arms.

Doubling up on Mechanized Production could win you the game very fast, or if you're playing an upkeep oriented deck, two Paradox Hazes for triple upkeeps.

There are also quite a few value cards you could double. Court of Bounty, Progenitor Mimic, etc. Or Enchantress's Presence in an enchantress deck.

I think you're on to something here; there are clutch cards for a lot of archetypes that would enjoy another copy. I think you can achieve some critical mass in addition with Clever Impersonator and Mirrormade.

Yeah 1+1=3 was a little to ambitious, but this is the way to go. I like the idea of Mechanized Production, I will try it out! So far i like enchantment cloning a lot as it tends to be a more resilient card type and it will provide value over time.

It's a little boring, but I'm always a fan of cloning Master Biomancer, especially a clone that increases its own power to then increase the power of everything else.

Yeah that one is really good.

One thing i want to keep in mind for the eventual deck is that I don't want it to feel like a pile of simic goodstuff, but for it to really have a distinct plan of it's own.