How They Brew It - Volo, Guide to Monsters: Two-Faced
Volo, Guide to Monster by Zoltan Boros
Yes, I built two Morph decks. This one is different, I swear.
Shapely Figure
Good evening, everyone! Tell me: are you afraid to truly be yourself? Have you ever felt like you just don't fit in, no matter what you do? And whenever you meet someone new, do you feel the need to mimic them so that they're not weirded out? Well, you're not alone. Changelings, transformers, and unfathomable monsters of the depths, welcome to Amorphous Anonymous, the original group therapy session for shapeshifters who want to discover their true selves!
I'm Michael Celani, and my preferred form is that of a Rorschach test which exhaustive analysis has revealed can only ever be interpreted as a picture of one of the Spice Girls. Fun psychology fact: if you see Baby Spice in it, you're seventy-eight times more likely than normal to be mauled by bears.
When I'm not in that body, though, I like to channel the form of a late-twenties white guy with a podcast that likes to talk about Magic: the Gathering on the internet. Yes, changelings can truly be anything! And although not having the stability that a fixed form provides can be daunting, the first step to recovery is accepting one fact: just because you were born an amorphous blob, that doesn't have reflect poorly on you when you look in the mirror.
Take Volo, Guide to Monsters, for example: if you were to cast a creature spell that has no creature types while he's on the field, you're guaranteed to get a copy of that spell! All you have to do is be yourself, which in this case is a shapeless primordial ooze. Let's get started!
Face Off
This deck is all about typeless creatures, and our main method of getting typeless creature spells is -- you guessed it -- casting that one card that looks exactly like Prince Zuko face-down creature spells. When you cast a morph, megamorph, or disguise spell face-down, all Volo sees on the stack is a simple 2/2 creature with no name, no color, and (crucially) no creature types. It's impossible for a creature without a creature type to match the creature type of something on the battlefield or the graveyard, so you're always getting an additional 2/2, no matter what the state of the board is!
Now, there is a catch: you'll only ever end up with an extra vanilla 2/2. Volo's duplicate is already face-up when it enters, so you're not going to be able to flip it for its morph cost or anything like that. However, a free not-Bear with every creature is a Great Value even Walmart can't hope to match, and there're plenty of ways to turn them into something terrifying. Let's take a look at the team:
Morphin' Time
Morphs have been around since Onslaught, where they were all (and this is canon) hatched from spiders made out of clay. That's why the symbol for that set is what it is; look it up. The point I'm trying to make here, though, is that this mechanic has been around for a while, and that gives us plenty of options for what we want to include in our list. Luckily, we don't have to try that hard; one of the major benefits of this deck is its consistency.
Thanks to Volo, our deck is effectively twenty-five sorceries that say "create two 2/2 colorless creatures," so our strategy doesn't rely on any specific morph to win because we're treating all of them like they'll remain face-down for the entirety of the game. With that in mind, any morphs are good morphs (not to be confused with Animorphs, a book series for children which I am shouting out specifically for one person in my audience).
Regardless, we'll still want to squeeze as much extra utility out of our cards as we can, so we might as well include face-down creatures with decent front faces instead of running straight beaters like Treespring Lorian. For example, though they might be overpriced relative to regular removal spells, Icefeather Aven, Nantuko Vigilante, Chromeshell Crab, and Thousand Winds can each easily take out threats in a manner your opponents will be extremely hard-pressed to respond to. Remember, turning a creature face-up is a special action, so not even Drana and Linvala can stop you from using your on-board pinpoint removal.
Similarly, Willbender and Kheru Spellsnatcher each deal with spells in a way that tends to sidestep huge Counterspell wars. When you're reasonably sure there's no sweeper coming or you're holding your Arcane Denial, flip Broodhatch Nantuko, Hooded Hydra, and Thelonite Hermit to play into the go-wide themes of the list. Finally, Zoetic Cavern can also be a land if you'd otherwise miss a drop.
Megamorphin' Time
Maybe that extra +1/+1 counter made a difference in Limited, but for those of us in a format where we don't have to have skill because we're going to lose most of the time anyway and therefore can easily externalize our own failure to the luck of the draw or the fact that there were three other people in the game vying for a win, it doesn't really matter all that much. These guys are just more morphs: more removal, Kadena's Silencer, and more value.
However, there is one card here that has a catch, and that's Salt Road Ambushers; you should actually try to cast this one face-up, because you're gonna want two copies of the real thing. Having two around gives all of your face-down creatures a permanent +4/+4 boost when you finally decide to flip them, which can make blocking your board extremely annoying for your opponent.
Let's See Who This Monster Really Is
One of the good things about being a shapeshifter is that I'm fantastic at violent crime, seeing as I can get away from the scene by becoming a different person entirely. One time, I assassinated a man and made my escape by masquerading as the corpse! Boy, do I feel bad for President Kennedy. Yes, learning how to disguise is great, because it's basically another morph except now those face-down creatures come with a wonderful ward cost that Volo happens to copy. Removal spells are here, of course, as well as a second land, but we actually have real payoffs in this category, too.
Printlifter Ooze and Experiment Twelve, like Salt Road Ambushers, should be cast face-up if Volo would duplicate them. They add absurd amounts of strength to flipping up face-down creatures, especially Printlifter Ooze, whom I've seen create six 10/10s in a single end step. Greenbelt Radical is, admittedly, a bad End-Raze Forerunners, but it is an End-Raze Forerunners nonetheless, and it makes up for its weak buff by throwing in a free 2/2 as a consolation prize.
Since we're focused on going wide, Coveted Falcon is an absurd response to a board wipe. Instead of saving all your creatures, you can donate them to another player and draw tons of cards for them, similar to how you might use Liliana's Standard Bearer. And speaking of going wide and drawing tons of cards, Mistway Spy makes each of your creatures investigate when they finally smack your opponent, which lets you rest easy in a wonderful position where you can hold mana up to either flip morphs or draw cards.
A Wide Net
So you see, shapeshifters, being comfortable in your own not-skin is a skill that will pay you dividends over the course of your life. People can detect fakeness really well, so the more confident you are when being yourself, the more confident you'll be when being someone else, too. Look around you: right now, you're surrounded by others that are facing the same problems you are. We're all in this together, and it's time to take the first step: there's only friends here among us, so there's no need to be an imposter anymore. Here're the cards that lift us all up, together:
Stronger Together
Let's be real for a second: for the vast majority of the game, your board is going to be ninety percent colorless 2/2s. That makes colorless anthems, like It That Heralds the End (cast it with Volo for twice the boost), Forsaken Monument, and Ruins of Oran-Rief terrifying for anyone sitting across from you, and although they don't work on your disguised creatures thanks to that pesky ward, Muraganda Petroglyphs and Ruxa, Patient Professor can buff most of your face down creatures even further and stop blockers from interacting with them all that effectively. Sticking a few of these and smacking your opponent around is your main method of victory.
You've Got Value
To get that huge board of colorless creatures, though, you're going to be casting a lot of morphs. A full fourth of the deck can be cast face-down, so it would be absurd to not lean into that. Since morphs are all creature spells, Beast Whisperer and Soul of the Harvest are an excellent way to keep on the gas, and Shamanic Revelation can save you from being Hellbent once you've dumped all your dorks onto the board. Secret Plans buffs up those creatures to be better blockers while also saving your hand from becoming too barren in an emergency.
Also, remember that face-down creatures have no name, meaning Guardian Project, which is usually terrible in Volo, Guide to Monsters lists, retains its power in this one. Trail of Mystery ensures you'll always have a land to drop, since all of your morphs now cantrip for a basic, and if you're running low on life because the aristocrats deck is draining you through your blockers, activate Tomb of the Spirit Dragon a couple times and undo any hard work sitting atop of a mountain of capital the Teysa Karlov player has inflicted upon you.
A Priceless Lesson
There's one more thing you need to learn before you're ready to shed this seveteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-seven step program and face the world a new you: your own self-worth. That's right, no matter what or how many shapes your body takes, you are still worth something. Now, I could leave it there and have this How They Brew It end on a heartwarming message about how all body types are valid, which I truly believe. Unfortunately, I can't, because it would immediately be undermined by the next section, which involves reducing the worth of all your morph's bodies until they hit zero. Oops.
Discounted Rate
Yes, it turns out that since face-down creatures only cost colorless mana to cast, you can use cost-reducers, like Nylea, Keen-Eyed, Cloud Key, and Obscuring Aether, to, like Fall Guys, reduce their numbers so low that they become free to play. There's a ton of these that all do the same thing, but the one I've got to shout out is Ugin, the Ineffable. It makes all your morphs almost free by itself and creates additional 2/2 colorless creatures every turn while also being card advantage.
Obviously, not having to pay mana to cast creatures is incredible, but that only gets you so far. You're eventually going to run out of cards in your hand, which means you'll be unable to generate more 2/2 colorless tokens to dome your opponents with. Unless, of course, you're running jank:
Either of these two permanents work together with enough cost-reducers to turn any morph into a Volo-based creature-generating machine. Cloudstone Curio works by simply bouncing another morph creature with its triggered ability when your new one enters, meaning you can keep casting the same two morphs back and forth to allow Volo to generate a huge board of not-Bears out of nowhere.
Primordial Mist arguably does it better; you can exile a face-down card and cast it that turn, but since casting a creature face-down is still a valid way of casting them, you are legally allowed to cast a morph creature you've exiled via Primordial Mist as a morph. Thus, if morphs are free, you can cast just one morph over and over again, again netting you an arbitrarily large board via Volo.
Shapeshifting Into an Exit Sign
If you've made it this far, congratulations. As a shapeshifter, we might be tempted to reinvent and reimagine ourselves to become the best people we can be. But the true best person you can be is the one that you're the happiest to be. Even if that person is a gigantic floating banana that likes to talk about anime all day. Thank you.
If you enjoy How They Brew It, please check out the Discord and my other projects at my website, where you can vote on which deck you get to see next. Next time, the ultimate showdown: will it be a return to Licids, or a return to the cleanup step? Which gets to take the coveted third part in the How to Make the Judge Cry trilogy? It's all up to you. Thanks for reading!
