In this experiment, we see ourselves at a crossroads and must reshape bitter souls.

If you saw any of Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch, you know Matter Reshaper had quite a showing. As it turns out, my secret personal notes of combo ideas happened to contain a list of three cards that I felt worked together in a pretty interesting way. And since one of those three cards was Matter Reshaper, now seemed to be the perfect time to reshape the matter into a full-fledged decklist.

My first thought about Matter Reshaper was that it seemed a lot like Bloodbraid Elf. But a Bloodbraid Elf can never cascade into another copy of Bloodbraid Elf. So my second thought about Matter Reshaper is that, if one dies, it could put another copy of itself onto the battlefield.

Except that, with Haunted Crossroads, it’s easy enough to put the dead Reshaper on top of our library so that, when the new one dies, it can bring back the first one—and the two can loop back and forth! Add in Phyrexian Altar as both a way to kill the Reshapers and as a source of the to pay for the Crossroads, and we have a loop.

Except that we really don’t even need two Matter Reshapers! When the first one is sacrificed for black mana, we can respond to its trigger by activating Haunted Crossroads; when the trigger resolves, it will put its source (technically a new object a couple times removed) right back onto the battlefield. The only question now is that to do with all that entering (or leaving) the battlefield.

Article Part 2

Essence Warden — I ended up with a B/G deck, but Soul Warden and friends work just as well. With this around, every time an Eldrazi reshapes itself, we’ll gain 1 life.

Carnival of Souls — This lets us make good use of that 1 life, netting us each time. So if we have Matter Reshaper, Phyrexian Altar, Haunted Crossroads, Essence Warden, and Carnival of Souls, we can generate infinite mana. Those are a lot of cards to try to bring together, so I’m not bothering to include something like Drain Life to take advantage of the interaction. Rather, Carnival of Souls with Essence Warden can stand in for Phyrexian Altar—though we’ll need an alternative method of killing the Reshaper in that case.

Viscera Seer — This is a cheap way to sacrifice creatures, and incidentally, it also does a nice job of setting up Matter Reshaper triggers when necessary.

Golgari Germination — With this around, every time our Matter Reshaper dies, we’ll make a 1/1. This is another way for us to generate infinite mana, as additional creatures with Phyrexian Altar around means additional mana. That said, infinite 1/1s can be lethal on their own, and as I mentioned, I didn’t choose to include Drain Life or the like.

Pawn of Ulamog — This is similar to the Germination above, though the 0/1s are far less lethal. They also can sacrifice for colorless mana without an Altar around, and they can help us cast Matter Reshaper with its colorless-mana cost. It’s possible this slot is a little weak since the Spawn aren’t lethal on their own and infinite amount of mana can’t be effectively made use of—not that we can’t make good use of a bunch of that mana.

Article Part 3

You may have noticed that a whole lot of our cards cost 3—that’s by design. We may as well make good use of Matter Reshaper’s ability when it dies. If it dies during the midgame, it can put basically any of our cards straight into play. Playing a lot of 3-drops, however, means 1-mana accelerants are super-effective. Turn-one mana accelerants let you cast 3-drops on turn two, and since we have a lot of 3-drops, it just makes sense to play a lot of 1-drop mana producers.

Boreal Druid — So this guy makes snow mana—which will be entirely overlooked in this deck because we want him for his colorless mana. That makes him the only 1-drop I know of that lets us play a turn-two Matter Reshaper (discounting cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt and cards like Elvish Mystic with Wastes).

Elves of Deep Shadow — I figured it’d be fun to play this, as we are playing a B/G deck, and I am looking for 1-drop accelerators. If we play this on turn one, we know we have (since we cast it), and this will provide the , ensuring we can cast Golgari Germination and helping us toward casting Pawn of Ulamog and Haunted Crossroads.

Elvish Mystic — Having replaced Llanowar Elves for no reason other than card name, this is the standard 1-drop. Green mana is useful, too, probably.

Harmonize — This rounds out the deck to help us dig a little. It doesn’t cost 3 or less, and it’s not a permanent anyway, but it shouldn’t be hard to cast with all our Elves, and it will help us find the combo pieces we need.

A Haunted Matter ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
• 2 Elvish Mystic
• 4 Essence Warden
• 4 Matter Reshaper
• 4 Pawn of Ulamog
• 4 Viscera Seer
• 4 Boreal Druid

• Spells (15)
• 1 Bitter Ordeal
• 2 Harmonize
• 2 Carnival of Souls
• 2 Golgari Germination
• 4 Haunted Crossroads
• 4 Phyrexian Altar

• Lands (21)
• 2 Forest
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Pine Barrens
• 3 Tainted Wood
• 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 4 Overgrown Tomb

Buy This Deck

Article Part 4

Did you miss it? In all my talking about how I wasn’t running a way to spend the infinite mana the deck has the potential to generate, I didn’t mention the win condition I did settle on.

Imagine playing a Boreal Druid on turn one, a Haunted Crossroads on turn two, a Phyrexian Altar on turn three, and a Matter Reshaper and any other 1-drop on turn four. Sacrifice the Reshaper to the Altar for , but in response to the Eldrazi’s trigger, activate the Crossroads to put the Reshaper on top of our library. The trigger resolves, putting the Reshaper onto the battlefield. Repeat about fifty times. Then, sacrifice the Reshaper, the Boreal Druid, and the other 1-drop for , and spend that on Bitter Ordeal. Pass the turn, and win the game.

An alternate turn-four win has us playing Viscera Seer on turn one, Carnival of Souls on turn two, Haunted Crossroads on turn three, and Soul Warden and Matter Reshaper on turn four. Carnival of Souls means we can have and 1 other mana floating as we begin sacrificing the Reshaper to the Seer repeatedly (regaining the life lost from Carnival with Soul Warden and paying for Haunted Crossroads—using it as in the previous example—with mana from the Carnival). While we’re scrying, we can loop through our deck such that a creature is on top. Once we’ve generated a sufficient gravestorm count, we sacrifice Matter Reshaper but don’t spend any mana to put it back on top of our library. It will put the creature into play, triggering Carnival of Souls a final time so that we have 3 mana. With that, we cast the Bitter Ordeal from our hand to win the game.

If we didn’t have the singleton Bitter Ordeal in our hand, things become a bit more complicated. Instead of scrying any creature to the top, we scry a second Matter Reshaper to the top. When we sacrifice the first, we don’t use Haunted Crossroads, instead putting the second onto the battlefield. That means we’re up 1 mana since we didn’t have to pay for the Crossroads that iteration. We can then loop with the second Reshaper, scrying until we hit a third. Then, let the second stay in the graveyard, netting another mana as we begin looping with the third. Scry until we hit the fourth, let the third stay dead, netting another mana, and loop with the fourth until Bitter Ordeal is on top. It turns out some of that was a bit unnecessary, as we now have 5 mana when we only needed 3 to cast the Ordeal we’ll draw from sacrificing the final Reshaper.

Article Part 5 (End)

So if you want to give Pine Barrens a try (even as a bad one-of), if you like the idea of a creature reshaping itself into itself over and over again, or if you’ve just been waiting for Boreal Druid to have its day in the sun (that’s an Ice Age joke! The joke also works with Elves of Deep Shadow because—you know—shadows, but then it’s not about Ice Age anymore, and the Elves of Deep Shadow aren’t even as important to the deck as Boreal Druid, so just stick with the original), give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com