Polymorph (Strategy)

Polymorph (or Poly for short) is a deck archetype that is almost totally unique to cEDH. Similar to Indomitable Creativity decks in Modern, Polymorph decks usually play commanders like Rograkh, Son of Rogahh that are cheap bodies, or Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools that create those cheap bodies. From there, it uses cards like Polymorph to turn that cheap body into the only creature in their deck, usually Hullbreaker Horror. Polymorph decks then generate infinite mana through repeatedly casting and returning mana-positive artifact rocks to their hand before sinking that infinite mana into an outlet such as Thrasios, Triton Hero or Jeska, Thrice Reborn.

## Type of Deck

Poly decks usually play a slower gameplan, due to the fact that they often need to take the time to set up their commanders and value engines to find their win condition. Often, they play a midrange, stax, control, or hybrid game plan. Faster Poly decks do exist, usually paired with Rograkh as a commander. They have the ability to go faster, mostly due to their higher density of polymorph effects.

## Downsides

While Poly decks are extremely consistent, they do have one major weakness: they cannot play any creatures in their deck other than the creature they wish to cheat in with their polymorphs. This can often force the Polymorph deck to play suboptimal outlets for their combos once infinite mana is achieved. Furthermore, there is always the chance that the Poly deck will draw its Polymorph target, rendering it's polymorphs useless unless they can get the card back into their library. They can still simply cast the poly target, but some Poly decks play both Hullbreaker and the it's slightly-more-expensive brother, Tidespout Tyrant, to mitigate this issue.

That's not to mention their other weaknesses to certain stax pieces like Grafdigger's Cage.

## Polymorph Decks

(*This list is not exhaustive)*

Urza, Lord High Artificer: Because of his proclivity for non-creature stax pieces, poly becomes an optimal win condition in Urza. He can prolong and control the game long enough and protect the polymorph attempt.

Shorikai, Genesis Engine: A control-stax deck that can play Humility. Usually wins through drawing its deck after infinite mana is achieved with Hullbreaker Horror or Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal.

Rograkh, Son of Rogahh + Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools (Zero Game Actions): A Rakdos Stax deck that cheats in a Sire of Insanity or Void Winnower while locking down the board with other stax.

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator + Rograkh / Kediss: A versatile Izzet deck that wants to poly into Glint-Horn Buccaneer as a one-card combo with Malcolm or pivot to a Breach plan.

Thrasios, Triton Hero + Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh: An aggressive, all-in Temur deck that plays both Tidespout and Hullbreaker for added consistency.

## Scramble Tech

The problems with Polymorph in the current meta, notably how weak it is to lots of common stax and the disadvantage of not being able to play creatures has led to the recent advent of Scramble Tech. This offshoot of Polymorph is centered around specific polymorph effects that can change any permanent into a permanent in the deck that matches a type with it. The strategy is named after the most powerful of these effects, Reality Scramble. The basis of the strategy is using Reality Scramble on a planeswalker (Usually a commander) and transform it into Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast. The pilot can then use Lukka's -2 ability to turn their other commander, a creature, into a common Polymorph target like Hullbreaker or Razaketh. This allows polymorph decks to play more than one creature, as long as none of them exceed the mana value of their creature commander, effectively creating a "creature ceiling."

    Scramble decks can cheat in game-winning creatures other than Tidespout or Hullbreaker, such as Razaketh the Foulblooded. However, Scramble does impose a difficult set of requirements for the setup to work, and requires very specific commanders that are currently limited to partners. Scramble decks also need to send both commanders to the command zone and, if stopped, often takes longer to recover due to the high amount of resources spent.

Where Scramble decks further diverge from traditional Polymorph strategies is their ability to cheat in game-winning planeswalkers and even enchantments depending on the commanders selected for the deck. The release of Commander Legends: Baldur's Gate introduced the background mechanic, allowing access to Scrambling out enchantments.

An extensive primer on Reality Scramble decks and their archetypes can be found Here.

### Scramble Decks

(*This list is not exhaustive)*

Jeska, Thrice Reborn + Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator: Izzet Midrange that scrambles in Hullbreaker Horror to complement Glint-Horn Buccaneer and Dockside combos.

Jeska, Thrice Reborn + Tymna the Weaver: Mardu Turbo Naus that Scrambles in Professor Onyx as a backup plan if its Naus is disrupted.

Jeska, Thrice Reborn + Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker: Jeskai Tempo that can pivot between 21ing people with Ishai, Scrambling out Hullbreaker Horror, or resolving an Intuition to combo out with Underworld Breach.