Control the disease!
This is an Abzan Illness in the Ranks deck, that works to play creatures like Blood Artist / Catacomb Sifter / Yahenni, Undying Partisan, then pour out a steam of tokens (either for ourselves, or giving our opponents some through Genesis Chamber and Forbidden Orchard), then watching as they all die to our playsets of Illness in the Ranks / Virulent Plague.
If you're feeling gutsy, you can try and pull out a win with Revel in Riches, but usually draining with Blood Artist, or beating down with Yahenni, Undying Partisan equipped with Blade of the Bloodchief can do the job.
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" -- Mufasa, talking about our landbase!
98% of the time, this deck is just going to be doing what lands do; provide you with mana. 18 of our lands come in untapped, and only one of our lands doesn't tap for colored mana in some way. Pain lands like Caves of Koilos are put to good use when we're draining with Blood Artist. Sure, Fetch+Shock lands would be strictly better, but this deck doesn't need them, and these alternatives keep the budget for the deck lower. 7 basics are fine. DON'T BE DUMN. RUN BASIC LANDS. With cards like Path to Exile and Settle the Wreckage running around the modern format, just play a few basics.
Forbidden Orchard is a funny card, that this deck takes great advantage of; with Illness in the Ranks out, it's an untapped Sandsteppe Citadel. With Blood Artist in? You're off to the races!
Now, we are running 2 manlands, and one flip-into-a-game-winner land. 2 Stirring Wildwoods are good 3/4 beaters that can do double duty blocking problem flying creatures. And Westvale Abbey
is for when you have all the tokens you could ask for, and no Illness / Plague in hand. A 9/7 flying indestructible lifelinker can get most jobs done!
What's this decks personality?
As this deck wants to run the long game (barring against token deck matchups; Illness > Blood Artist and that's a lockout), this deck suffers against unfavourable matchups on game 1. Control / Bloodbraid Jund / Storm can be tricky and Infect / Affinity / Tron just walks right through us by turn 3, due to our pretty small removal package (though Illness / Plague are also forms of removal, they are focused at a specific target). 4 Beast Withins are the deck's catch-alls (and play into our deck's strategy), and 1 Grave Pact is in for those Aggro Stompy / Zoo opponents. It should be said though that these don't come by all that frequently. Anguished Unmaking could be thrown in for more broad removal that exiles, but Beast Within works for giving our opponent a token that's potentially dead upon entry -- and it can hit problematic lands!
So with that knowledge, we are rocking a very active sideboard. Each card is there only to deal with a very specific matchup. Damping Sphere kills Tron lands (and Cloudpost, if you're playing against a legacy deck for some reason), and taxes that Storm or Aetherflux-storm player. Krosan Grip can deal with 95% of infinite combos as they happen due to split second, Pithing Needle has unbelievable potential against all kinds of matchups (go watch Rhystic Studies' youtube vid "we need the needle"), Relic of Progenitus can turn off reanimator / Dredge stategies, Solemnity is anti-Infect / Energy, and finally, Spell Snare can interrupt many turn 1 combokill decks, like the Goryo's Vengeance + Griselbrand
deck.
A synopsis
And so, this is a goofy Abzan synergy deck, that at worst comes short against tier 1 / 2 netdecks, and at best neuters token decks with a turn one Illness in the Ranks + Swamp
. I hope you enjoy!
