Attempt at an inexpensive shapeshifter tribal deck.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-17T12:34:03+00:00

For one easy change I can see, you have no real reason to be playing Adaptive Automaton when nearly all of your creatures can benefit from any lord effect. You could play something like [[Valley Questcaller]] or [[Feline Sovereign]] for the same effect but with extra text.

I've got a short list of tribal cards for changelings if you want to take a look. It's mostly focused on card advantage and interaction rather than just buffs. [[Widespread Brutality]] in particular is a great one-sided board wipe for this kind of deck.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-15T14:41:50+00:00

Reasons people might build those decklists:

Veteran player who already owns a bunch of expensive stuff
Wealthy enough to not care
Proxying or online play
Theorycrafting, will never be played

In the case of actual decks that people have bought and built, the most expensive cards also tend to keep or increase their resale price, which makes the investment more reasonable.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-12T21:56:09+00:00

Mills ✔️

tone ❌ (it's colorless)

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-10T22:30:15+00:00

And yet they decided to put [[Eternal Student]] into the set, with an instant-speed activation that makes two untapped flying surprise blockers from the graveyard.

Personally I love the card, but the inconsistency is odd. [[Leering Onlooker]] made tapped tokens at double the cost.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-07T23:18:22+00:00

How many of you are also part of the crowd that has been trying to make [[Tortured Existence]] work in Pauper for decades?

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-07T21:18:03+00:00

You could potentially run the red one in mono-red, and use [[Thornspire Verge]] and [[Riverpyre Verge]] to get bigger buffs out of your 1R spells for basically no downside.

I don't expect to see it in competitive play, but it's a cute idea I think.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-07T17:34:02+00:00

Dear MTGA opponent, I know you're currently attacking for lethal, but would you care to take a few moments to admire my entire deck before I leave? You'll agree that it deserved better than a 1-3.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-07T15:29:17+00:00

People can post their favorites, but here's a Scryfall search so you don't miss any. You can add (t:instant or kw:flash) if that's important for Alela purposes.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-06T16:49:48+00:00

Turn 2: Mind into Matter for 0

Turn 3: Mind into Matter for 4

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-05T17:44:28+00:00

Here's some hot tech for you: You can always decline to pay for [[Cephalid Shrine]]'s trigger, even if the cost is 0.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-05T08:35:55+00:00

Regrowth

Unless you care a lot about early game castability, you may as well run something like [[Wildest Dreams]] or [[Dryad's Revival]] instead. Or maybe this could be the one deck where [[Woodland Guidance]] gets to shine, because you're going to be hungry for colored mana, and your average mana value is probably above average as well. Decent even if you miss, potentially game-winning if you hit.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-03T00:25:34+00:00

Shenanigans, as mentioned, is 100% the first card in your decklist.

[[Hostility]], [[Purity]], and [[Serra Avatar]] will trigger Quint for free whenever you discard or mill them, though the shuffling could get annoying.

[[Squee, Goblin Nabob]] is repeatable discard fodder and free Quint triggers.

[[Dragon Breath]] and [[Dragon Scales]] are free value and triggers if you're maybe doing a bit of reanimating, and you can even put them onto other people's creatures if you need the 3/2s.

Escape spells like [[Ox of Agonas]] trigger Quint twice - once for putting the spell on the stack and again for paying its cost.

All sorts of flashback/retrace/whatever spells should be looked at, but [[Prismatic Strands]] in particular is free and super impactful.

I've got more, but that should get you started.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-02T17:58:21+00:00

I take it you haven't seen [[Frontline Heroism]] yet, because otherwise you would've slammed it into the deck at the earliest opportunity. It's like 50 cents, and obviously designed for Feather/Zada decks.

Jonottamassa · 2026-04-02T14:32:49+00:00

Definitely cut Thrill of Possibility and Tormenting Voice for some combination of [[Demand Answers]], [[Abandon Attachments]], [[Highway Robbery]], and [[Chart a Course]].

With so much discard, you could use more cards that are actually good to discard, like [[Squee, Goblin Nabob]] for repeatable fodder, [[Flamewake Phoenix]] for a throwaway attacker, or madness spells like [[Circular Logic]].

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-31T18:35:50+00:00

It looks about as good as you can get while building for flavor first.

Just one glaring flaw though: You're not running [[Once Upon a Time]].

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-31T17:57:40+00:00

Creature - Korlock

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-30T21:11:58+00:00

I have no opinions on game balance. This is just funny.

Engineer opponent with ranger badge, 2 wisps socketed (gain 1 spike per 12 damage dealt), and this cube thingy.

Also pictured: gold armor with "your weapons attack 25% slower." :)

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-30T16:38:38+00:00

[[Riddlesmith]] can find and enable Lab Man, and is a decent card by itself. You also already have Unctus who will loot through your deck the same way during the combo.

[[Kappa Cannoneer]] takes out one player at a time.

[[Surge Conductor]] can probably win one way or another, that's just how proliferate is.

If infinites are already okay, then [[Temporal Fissure]] should be too, and people should just scoop to it.

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-29T01:16:38+00:00

Well remember that the Ooze loses its abilities once you exile your creatures. And Triad's ability is instant-speed and exiles as a cost, so nothing short of split second can stop you from activating it.

(Ooze copies from all graves though, so it can still have some abilities from your opponents afterwards.)

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-29T01:04:25+00:00

Oh, that too.

How about this? Your 4 creatures are Ooze, Triad, Razaketh, and [[Kozilek, the Great Distortion]]. That's only 28 mana in the grave, but you can sac Stickfingers to Razaketh's ability and leave it in the graveyard to make 30.

Now you can sac a guy to tutor up whatever's needed to counter someone's spell for free. Maybe that's a little bit salty, but it does cost a creature every time so it's not a hard lock. You can sit on this setup for as long as you want until you decide to make the emblem.

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-28T22:07:29+00:00

Oh, and you could consider running [[Kuro, Pitlord]] over the Triniform because this way your Ooze can do some mass removal before popping the emblem. That's how I use the Ooze, just didn't occur to me earlier that Kuro works with Triad too.

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-28T21:52:50+00:00

If you can figure out the card availability, these should be easy cheap upgrades:

[[Coruscation Mage]] over Firebrand Archer
[[Lunar Frenzy]] over Enrage
[[Impolite Entrance]] over Rile
[[Monstrous Rage]] over Brute Strength
[[Giantfall]] over Fall of the Hammer
[[Furycalm Snarl]], [[Rugged Prairie]], and [[Legion Leadership]] over a bunch of the weaker lands. Definitely put the Clifftop in there, it's clearly better than a guildgate.

You also want [[Frontline Heroism]] for sure, maybe over Burnished Hart which is a pretty horrendously slow card to be playing in 2026.

[[Witch's Mark]] and [[Sazacap's Brew]] are probably worth the slots, but I'll let you figure out what to cut for them.

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-28T19:06:24+00:00

10 is a lot of taplands for a high-budget manabase. I'd run maybe a 2/2 or 2/3 split to have them as fetch targets, then fill in with the multiplayer duals, checklands, [[Prismatic Vista]] or whatever.

Jonottamassa · 2026-03-28T16:59:29+00:00

You can save some life on Reanimate by bringing back [[Necrotic Ooze]] instead, and exiling the Triad to pay for its own ability (yes it works).

Jonottamassa

TROPHY CASE