Commander Deck Tech: Morlun, Devourer of Spiders

Marvel's Spider-Man introduced many villains to us. One of them was Morlun, Devourer of Spiders, who definitely stood out.

This monoblack Vampire has a pretty unique ability that deals damage to a target opponent when he enters play.

In this article, you'll find two lists with this commander: one is a classic good stuff monoblack list, and the other centers around infect and proliferate.

Let's dive right in!

Morlun is a Spider-Man villain who, just like a Vampire, hunts and feeds off the Spider-Totems in the Multiverse. In Commander matches, this Vampire will "drain" our opponents' life points.

Morlun's ETB triggered ability states that he comes into play with X +1/+1 counters and deals X damage to a target opponent. As he already has lifelink, this means he comes in, shoots someone's life points, and gives us that many points back.

However, as with many Hydras in MTG, we don't get to keep the counters if we blink him with Conjurer's Closet, for instance.

The same goes if we reanimate Morlun because we will only pay X if we actually cast him.

Considering this commander's pros and cons, we built a list with some classic monoblack cards. We'll drain our opponents' life points with different cards and take advantage of the mana we create to put Morlun in play as fast as possible for as high of an "X" as we can.

Mana Rocks, Ramp, and Other Ways to Create Mana

Whoever said only monogreen can create a truckload of mana definitely doesn't know the power of monoblack lists.

Black Market, Dark Ritual, Magus of the Coffers, Nirkana Revenant, Crypt Ghast, and Liliana of the Dark Realms need no introduction. Gauntlet of Power and Caged Sun buff our creatures by +1/+1, and the lands create one extra mana of a chosen color.

With Expedition Map, we'll get one of our key lands to create more mana, like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Cabal Stronghold, Cabal Coffers, and even Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

We also play a few cards that discount the cost of black spells:

Besides discounting costs, The Darkness Crystal exiles enemy creatures that die on the board and gives us 2 life. With its activated ability, we can put in play, under our control, a creature we exiled with it. This creature will then enter play with two +1/+1 counters.

Burn and Draining Life

We'll start with the cards that let us drain more life and, as such, support Morlun.

Bloodthirsty Conqueror is a scary flying Vampire with deathtouch. Just like Exquisite Blood, its ability states that if an opponent loses life, we'll gain that much life back. If you'd like to set up an infinite lifegain/lifeloss combo, you can add Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Sanguine Bond to this list.

Besides attacking the opponents' life points when their creatures die, Massacre Wurm could clear the board, as it gives enemy creatures -2/-2 until the end of the turn. The same goes for The Meathook Massacre, but the difference is that we get to pick how many "negative" counters this spell puts on the board.

The adorable Crypt Rats can also clear enemy boards because they deal damage to each creature in play. Syr Konrad, the Grim's ability works on any creature that enters the graveyard, including the ones our opponents control. Furthermore, its activated ability forces each player to mill the top card in their decks. So, we'll definitely deal damage to each opponent while it is in play.

Protection Racket could be a lot of help, either in terms of card draw or burn. It'll be up to the opponents.

Its ability has us reveal the top cards in our deck at the beginning of our upkeep, one for each opponent in play. Then, each player can pay life equal to that card's mana value to make us exile it. If they don't, we can add that card to our hand.

One of the strongest keywords in decks that interact with lifedrain mechanics is extort. So, we had to add Pontiff of Blight to this list.

Now, let's talk about finishers!

We picked all the other cards for synergy, and they can certainly finish the game, but the three cards above, by themselves, are as destructive as the other ones and a lot faster.

Torment of Hailfire forces our opponents to pick between losing 3 life, sacrificing a nonland permanent, or discarding a card. They'll have to do this an "X" amount of times, where "X" is the mana we use to play it.

As for Exsanguinate, it drains X life points from each opponent and gives us that many life points back.

Finally, we have Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is very popular in decks that use lots of reanimates because its ETB works with devotion to black. We usually play spells to return it to play for that reason.

By itself, this card can finish games. However, this list includes fun interactions with it and a few other cards. With Mortuary in play, any creatures that go to our graveyard will go to the top of our deck. If Viscera Seer is in play, we can sacrifice the Zombie to Scry 1. Next, it will go to the top of our deck and we get to cast it with Bolas's Citadel.

Like so, we can reuse Merchant's ability again and again to finish the game.

Alternative List

Morlun's ETB is cool and can definitely win games. But we can't forget he is a legendary creature that interacts with +1/+1 counters.

We have, then, a monoblack legendary creature that interacts with counters… Why not build an infect/proliferate list?

That's why we built this version:

We added a few cards that proliferate to buff Morlun himself or just add more poison counters to our opponents.

And, as usual, we added some infect cards:

Morlun doesn't make this whole thing work by himself, but he is a key piece of the entire strategy and can certainly devour an opponent's life points. Depending on what is on our board, he could even devour more than one opponent just by entering play.

He is interesting but not stupidly strong.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!