Elfball AND Infect? This High Perfect Morcant Commander Deck Does It All

High Perfect Morcant | Art by Victor Adame Minguez

The last creature type I built was Nobles, so it's fitting that I’m getting back to brewing with another one, with High Perfect Morcant. This legendary creature is far from perfect, but you wouldn’t be able to guess from the buzz it’s generated, both in terms of prerelease speculation and…other speculation.

It’s been intriguing to watch the story of the first plane I formally visited weave designs that stitch together the disparate sides of the plane. This deck tech of High Perfect Morcant will fuse elements of both sides of the plane to create a new kind of Elfball.

As mentioned, I have a bit of a history with the plane of Lorwyn. When I was in college, the first prerelease I went to was a Lorwyn one. When I was beginning to play competitively, the first Pro Tour Qualifiers I went to were Shadowmoor Block Constructed.

When Jace, the Mind Sculptor priced me out of Standard and pretty much every other competitive format, Doran, the Siege Tower was my entry into Commander. I had recently added green to my trusty Orzhov tokens deck, and Doran was the only 3+ color legend I owned.

Elvish History

Elves have been part of Magic: The Gathering and fantasy lore in general for about as long as either have been around. Llanowar Elves, or, as my playgroup calls it, “lawnmower elves,” puts the type in green from the start, and Elves of Deep Shadow introduced black as a secondary color way back in The Dark.

Elfball, as the strategy is called, is ubiquitous in Commander, consisting of using Elf "mana dorks" (creatures that can tap for mana) to accelerate into Overrun effects, going wide and closing games out quickly. Green has been reaching out into card draw, especially attached to creatures, so there’s no shortage of playable cards.

In fact, Elves tend to suffer from what Pokémon players refer to as “four move slot syndrome,” having a bevy of options and struggling to fit them all in a 100-card framework. Present on almost every plane, Elves have been picking up playable cards and commanders with almost every set, becoming one of the most powerful and iconic creature types in the multiverse.

So how can a new commander take them in a different direction? And what is there left to discover?

What Does High Perfect Morcant Do?

High Perfect Morcant is definitely an Elf-centered commander, and not just one that happens to be an Elf. When it or another Elf enters, each opponent puts a -1/-1 counter on a creature they control. By tapping three Elves, we can proliferate, including all of those counters, but also any other counters we stand to benefit from.

That last part is where things get spicy. While we can only activate the ability as a sorcery, we can tap summoning sick creatures, meaning that this is an Elfball variant that can also control the board.

But what if we combined two of the most powerful aggressive strategies in Commander, which happen to also be in black and green?

What can I say…there’s something about Morcant that’s just…infectious.

Key Cards for High Perfect Morcant

Glistener Elf is one of the more powerful cards in the infect package, and it’s the first card I thought of for the deck. All it takes is one hit from this dangerous little critter, and we can proliferate our wide board to take out an opponent. Triumph of the Hordes is already one of the deadliest Overrun effects, and we can proliferate away any survivors.

Noxious Assault provides another way for us to Triumph, and triumph we will.

We want to go wide as quickly as possible, making those Overrun effects deadly as quickly as we can. Elvish Promenade and Lys Alana Huntmaster are some of the fastest ways to fill our board, making the math on Triumph and Assault as simple as possible.

Interestingly, many of the strongest proliferators happen to also be Elves. Evolution Sage and Pollenbright Druid, from War of the Spark, happen to be Elves that proliferate. Final Fantasy brought Tromell, Seymour's Butler, which was a genuine surprise to me, as I didn’t know Final Fantasy had Elves. Then again, the franchise has “fantasy” in the name, so I guess it makes sense.

One of the best counters to Elfball is a healthy dose of Wrath of God effects. Thankfully, green and black have ways to protect against board wipes, some better lined up than others. Heroic Intervention is the standard for board protection, but Wrap in Vigor and its siblings, Wail of the Nim, Dark Dabbling, and Golgari Charm all do a great job.

And if we can’t line things up properly, we have Patriarch's Bidding and Haunting Voyage to get our board back. Remember, Morcant cares about Elves entering, not being cast!

While many of our lands are there to provide boosts in mana based on the amount of creatures or permanents we control, there are some spicy additions for our strategy. Karn's Bastion is there to provide an extra means of proliferation. We can afford to run a colorless land because we’re in two colors, and we'll have extra mana most turns to activate it.

Inkmoth Nexus is another way to poison an opponent, sneaking around ground defenses for us to proliferate poison counters to the lethal ten.

How Does This High Perfect Morcant Commander Deck Win?

We look to operate like a typical Elfball deck: Flood the board with fast mana and Overruns, but with the added bonus of infecting opponents to make them die faster.

We also have board protection to make sure this happens faster and more consistently, despite the presence of common counterplay.

And of course, as many people already know, High Perfect Morcant goes "infinite" with Flourishing Defenses, wiping your opponents' creatures out while filling your board with 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens.

High Perfect Morcant Commander Deck List

Conclusion

Elfball is a fun and simple strategy, perfect for the end of a game night. There are lots of cool options, but fusing two of the strongest aggro strategies together is a pretty perfect combination.

But how would you build High Perfect Morcant? And how would you differentiate it from other Elfball decks? Let us know in the comments.