I'm not a huge fan of the Whip of Erebos or the Grim Haruspex. I don't know what I'd replace them with, they just don't feel like they match the deck. Congrats, though. This deck looks fun.

Maybe try to find room for a copy of Sidisi, Undead Vizier? She can trade out a manifested land for a clutch removal spell.

So the Haruspex is for value, I think. He attacks in suicidally with manifests from Whisperwood Elemental or Mastery of the Unseen. If any die, he draws a card. Keeps up the pressure. This also explains the needed mana boost from Sylvan Caryatid.

Not bad.

@JakeHarlow yeah that's exactly it. If he ever gets manifested then it's cheap at just a to flip him. This is huge because it makes playing multiple things or activating multiple abilities in a turn much more possible. Against control, you can get to a point where you force a board wipe because they can't 1 for 1 your 2/2's all day. Having him on board when it happens typically replaces your hand so you can keep the pressure on and don't give them a chance to get set up.

@NobodyPicksBulbasaur Whip of Erebos is a hold over from the original deck. This started as my Abzan deck but I've been a big fan of Mastery of the Unseen so I started siding it in against control (uncounterable 2/2's seems good). Then I saw the G/W devotion deck that popped up and knew there was a better way to build the deck. Then I started getting really excited when I saw things like Den Protector and Hidden Dragonslayer so I started converting the deck over from an aggressive midrange deck to this. The whip may be expendable. Originally it was just a better option than Sorin because it stayed on the board longer and gave me extra value from things like Siege Rhino when I brought them back. I left it in because it has tremendous upside by getting extra use out of creatures in the yard. Whipping back a whisperwood leaves behind a 2/2 with upside. Getting back a rhino is a potential 14 point life swing. Anafenza leaves a counter on my other creatures when I bring her back. However, I'll have to test it out and see what I colud replace it with. I just know from experience playing the whip in my abzan decks that it provides a tremendous amount of extra value and is always something my opponent hates to see hit the board.

I don't see how the Whip is super bad here. It's another layer of resilience for the deck. The theme seems to be all about layered pressure either from the yard or library (to say nothing of casting threats from the hand). On top of this, there is the life gain that the Whip brings. Card advantage and life advantage are two huge factors of winning games, especially in this midrange-dominated metagame. The manifest capability here produces strong matchups against most of today's popular control lists. I'm really not surprised that this did so well. If it catches on, I imagine enchantment hate will start to get leaned on.

I still imagine the devotion matchup is a doozy. This deck doesn't really run the hurry-up when it comes to early offense, which is one of the only reliable methods of beating devotion. When it gets all its stompies on board, a crowd of 2/2s isn't going to be able to halt the carnage too well. Still I imagine the matchup to be a long and tedious one, given all the life gain on either side. Wingmate Roc or a big airborne dude might be a good way to break the stalemate for that match.

Did you play against anyone running Atarka's Command, abenz419?

@JakeHarlow Actually no I didn't which I was kinds surprised about considered as much as I heard people talk about it leading up to release. The thing this deck has that the / devotion version doesn't have is a way to push damage through. Going Abzan lets me mainboard my removal and that is huge in the sense that I don't have to rely totally on inevitability to win. The deck plays out a lot like Abzan midrange untill I hit 6 mana and a Mastery of the Unseen or a Whisperwood Elemental.

I didn't see the / version this week but I have played it before. Obviously the deck was slightly different because this was before DTK, but the concept was the same. An aggressive abzan deck that had tons of late game value from Whisperwood and Mastery. It was as you suspected a grindy matchup. The thing that made that matchup so difficult was awkward draws. We ended up drawing as we didn't finish game 3 before time, but whenever I got behind it was because I didn't have an immediate answer for their Whisperwood. That usually let them get their devotion going helped them create that stall the deck is known for. I would grind and get back into the game and that's when another Whisperwood would hit the board. I feel like this updated list is much more efficient and consistent than before so while it may not be the easiest match up I don't think the worst either.

I hear you. I don't think it would be a terrible matchup, just a very long grindy one, as you've reported. That's why I think Wingmate could be a decent option to keep the pressure on, especially with Whip. It isn't a huge surprise that the tie was forced. I think early and persistent removal is your best bet to quash the devotion, which obviously leads to board-flooding and life gain.

I think the list looks really good, though. Haruspex + manifest is such a good pressure/tempo combo. I never thought of it before I saw this list, actually. :)

pretty cool +1 from me

@JakeHarlow and Hans49163 Thanks guy's I appreciate it. For some reason I'm just really excited about this deck. Even last night at FNM when I wasn't drawing optimally I felt like I always had something to do. So never having to take a turn off really helped a lot and made every game fun for me to play. As far as Grim Haruspex goes, it's been mixed results but in an odd way I think that actually shows how good the card is. There have been games where a single Haruspex has drawn me multiple cards and that card advantage has helped put me over the top. There are also games where it dies as soon as it hits the board because they target it as soon they can to prevent any card advantage from taking over. So while it's probably drawn me a card in less than 50% of the games I've played one, I think the fact that they're actively targeting it knowing I have other threats like Anafenza, Rhino, and Whisperwood says a lot about how strong it can be. Funny thing about the Haruspex as well, people seem to be under the impression that morph and manifest creatures are tokens (i think because of the reminder cards). So when I do get to draw cards off face down cards dying people are confused at first. That's when the one's who didn't already know, realize how good it can be and start to immediately take it out as soon as they see it.