I’m back again with another look at Manifest and this time I have a deck list! I’m going to break down some of my card choices and go over some of the core synergies that make the decks go. This is my first foray into deck breakdowns so if I don’t cover anything that you would like to know, just ask me in the comments.

Whisperwood Elemental x 4

Icefeather Aven x 4

Rattleclaw Mystic x 4

Ashcloud Phoenix x 4

Hooded Hydra x 3

Sagu Mauler x 3

Prophet of Kruphix x 2

Wildcall x 4

Temur Charm x 4

Secret Plans x 3

Ghostfire Blade x 2

Island x 4

Forest x 4

Mountain x 3

Frontier Bivouac x 4

Yavimaya Coast x 4

Shivan Reef x 4

This deck list is a little rough and light on some disruptive instants that I would like to add, but I like the overall skeleton of this morphing nightmare. The back bone of this deck is Whisperwood Elemental and Wildcall. Both of these manifest makers setup all of the morph creatures in the deck to flip for relatively small mana investments and they add a level of confusion to your creatures that is incredibly useful. The normal down side of playing a morph deck is that, while playing a creature face down does add some mystery to your cards, every morph creature you play face-down is over-costed when you first play them. A colorless 2/2 for 3 mana is usually a terrible investment and just making that investment in a game of Standard tells your opponent, “you had better kill this thing before it flips because once it does it is going to wreck your life.” Wildcall and Whisperwood Elemental mess up that equation by adding facedown cards that could be meaningless to your board. Furthermore, the manifest creatures that Wildcall and Whisperwood Elemental create are actually cost effective! Wildcall always creates an efficient creature regardless of how much you pay and Whisperwood Elemental just makes creatures for free. Both of these cards set the table for some of the huge blowouts that this deck can unload.

Rattleclaw Mystic and Icefeather Aven are two early creatures that double as utility spells when played face-down. Mystic allows you to flip your big monsters a turn early (or several if you play it face-down), helps you get all of your colors of mana, and it puts on a bit of pressure when it attacks. Icefeather Aven is efficient whether you play it face-up or face-down and simply being a 2/2 flier for 2 mana is strong enough to be playable without its great ability. However, Icefeather Aven also happens to have the ability to return a creature to its owner’s hand when it flips face-up. Its bounce ability helps offset some of the tempo loss that is inherent in playing morphed creatures. Without the ability to bounce or destroy some early threats a morph deck would really have a hard time keeping up with aggressive decks. Without Icefeather Aven providing some spell-like versatility the whole deck would suffer. Keep in mind that playing Icefeather or Mystic face-up on turn 2 is often the right play, especially against decks that put on a lot of early pressure or clogs the board with big-butted blockers like Sylvan Caryatid or Courser of Kruphix.

Ashcloud Phoenix is a huge problem for opposing decks because of its ability to constantly threaten the opponent and play outstanding defense. This flier allows you to block and trade with impunity since it comes back to life as a 2/2 whenever it dies. Ashcloud creates card advantage simply by being in play since it can eat multiple removal spells and keep coming back for more. Ashcloud is one of the only creatures in the deck that should be played face-up almost every time you cast it from your hand.

Hooded Hydra might be a little too clever in this deck but the potential value is just too enticing for me not to try it. Here’s the deal: if you manifest Hooded Hydra with Whisperwood Elemental or Wildcall, then you can flip it for its regular mana cost of 2 green mana. It’s important to mention that when you flip Hooded Hydra it gets 5 +1/+1 counters regardless of how you flip it, meaning you get a 5/5 creature for 2 mana and it turns into 5 1/1 snakes when it dies. I know that this grand scheme might not work very often, but when it does it is going to be so pretty. Playing Hooded Hydra face-down isn’t that bad of a consolation prize, but it is really the manifest interaction that has me excited.

Sagu Mauler is the scariest morph creature in the deck and once it turns face-up it is just about impossible to stop. In a Standard format that is largely defined by Siege Rhino having a 6/6 hexproof trampler seems like a nice answer.

Prophet of Kruphix allows you to actually keep your un-morph mana up at all times and keep the flood of creatures coming from the mid to the late game. Morph decks can be very slow and mana-hungry, but Prophet of Kruphix solves both of those problems by doubling your mana and letting you play creatures on your opponent’s turn.

Secret Plans and Ghostfire Blade both add survivability to your face-down creatures and give your otherwise slow-midrange deck some added utility in the early turns. If you land a Blade or lay some Plans in the first 2 turns you will be in a pretty good position once turn 3 comes around and morph comes online. Remember that Ghostfire Blade can be equipped to any face-down creature for a measly 1 mana.

The only instant in the deck as of now is Temur Charm and I think you should keep all 4 of them for the foreseeable future. All three modes of this charm are relevant almost all of the time and it just serves so many functions in this deck. It does everything from slow your opponent down, to kill an important creature, to end the game.

The deck’s land base is pretty set with the only real problem being Frontier Bivouac coming into play tapped. I don’t know if potentially slowing down an already slow deck is worth the more stable mana base, especially since almost every creature in the deck can be played for 3 colorless mana.

` I hope that you enjoy this quirky little deck. I’ve had a blast playing it during my tests and I plan on taking some variation of it to my next FNM. If you’re sick of rhinos and whips then give tree elementals and phoenix’s a try!