Commander Deck Tech: High Perfect Morcant

Do you think Elves and -1/-1 counters can work together?

The new MTG set, Lorwyn Eclipsed, brought back a few old friends, but it also brought back some new ones, like High Perfect Morcant.

Today, we'll discuss two lists centered around this "perfect commander". The first one focuses on playing Elves so that you can use Morcant's counter effect and Proliferate, and the second one focuses on Proliferating Poison counters. Let's meet our commander first!

Lorwyn's Elvish society prized physical beauty and favored "perfect" bodies through a caste system. However, after the Phyrexian invasion, this society collapsed and this system disappeared. Currently, there are many Elvish feuds, but they all pay tribute to the same leader: High Perfect Morcant.

This Golgari leader is thought to have the perfect voice, smell, skin, and appearance. She also uses Elves to control enemy boards and force opponents to put -1/-1 counters on their creatures.

As a ruler, High Perfect Morcant doesn't hesitate to use other Elves for her own interests.

For us, however, the Elves in this list are resources. They'll trigger our commander's ability so that we can control enemy boards and create space for powerful attacks with cards like Ezuri, Renegade Leader or Triumph of the Hordes.

The Main Combo and Tutors

Pre-requisites:

1. At least one opponent must control a creature.

2. Flourishing Defenses must be in play.

Combo:

1. Cast High Perfect Morcant (if she's not in play) or another Elf.

2. When one of your Elves comes into play, your commander's effect will trigger and force each opponent to put one -1/-1 counter on a creature they control.

3. Flourishing Defenses's ability will then trigger and give you a 1/1 Elf Warrior creature token.

4. When this token comes into play, your commander's ability will trigger again.

5. Repeat step 3.

You may tap the tokens you create to Proliferate counters on enemy creatures. This loop restarts whenever an Elf enters your side of the table.

When your opponents don't have any more creatures in play, the loop ends.

Tutors

This combo will let us control the board, but it won't end the game. So, we added some tutors to get any cards from our deck that do that.

Tokens

Many cards in the game create Elf tokens, and these, in turn, trigger High Perfect Morcant's ability. They'll also fill your board so that you can attack opponents with a small army.

Nest of Scarabs is an exception among the cards above because it creates Insect creature tokens.

Elves may Proliferate, but High Perfect Morcant's army actually does way more than that.

With a full board, one decent strategy is buffing our units so that they deal a lot of damage. That's one way to end the game.

Our main attackers for this strategy are Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Elvish Warmaster, and Craterhoof Behemoth.

Lathril, Blade of the Elves's triggered ability is nothing to scoff at. If we tap 10 untapped Elves, this dear Elf gives us 10 life and makes each opponent take 10 damage. Considering the standard Commander table, with three opponents, this ability will deal a total of 30 damage to everyone's HP.

Creating Mana

Elf deck may play more colors, but they're predominantly green. In MTG, these creatures are always tied to this color, even though, in some planes, like Lorwyn, they're also black . Green gives us access to one of the best tools in the game for any deck: ramp. As many Elves create mana, each of them does something more than just activate High Perfect Morcant's effects.

Card Draw

Green is also great at drawing cards. Many green card draw tools perform really well in this list.

As this list also interacts with tokens, Skullclamp is a must.

Generous Patron's Support 2 buffs up to two of our creatures, but what makes this card truly shine is its card draw effect, which interacts really well with High Perfect Morcant. With all this solid card draw and ramp, this deck is a dangerous snowball. It'll push -1/-1 counters through and allow us to set up powerful attacks.

This alternative list centers around High Perfect Morcant's ability, which Proliferates.

Considering the current state of Commander, the most dangerous counters to Proliferate in any game are the iconic Poison counters. Keep in mind that, in Commander, if an opponent gets 10 of these counters, they lose the game.

Before we Proliferate, we need to put at least one Poison counter on each opponent. So, we added the following cards to this list:

According to the lore, the Phyrexian invasion disrupted Lorwyn's Elvish society, but the cards released when this part of the story was being featured actually help High Perfect Morcant win many Commander matches.

This alternative list also plays several cards that the first one does, like Unnatural Restoration and Triumph of the Hordes, and uses Elves exclusively to support Poison counters.

The most perfect Elf among the Elves, High Perfect Morcant, is a scary commander that doesn't need too much support to dominate the game. She just builds an extremely synergistic board that will force your opponents to use board wipes to deal with it.

This list is fast and uses one of the oldest types of creatures in the game. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of support for this creature type, like lords and their +1/+1 buffs, Forestwalk, cards that create creature tokens, and a lot more.

If you don't care if your opponents target you, or you just like Elves, or if you want another Golgari commander that can scare any opponent, Morcant is a great option.

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!