After a bit of a hiatus and much demand I am getting back onboard the MTG writing train. I figured that with Fate Reforged launching this weekend I would look at my favorite card from the new set: Whisperwood Elemental. Now that isn’t to say that Whisperwood Elemental is the best card in the set. I’m fairly certain that Monastery Mentor, Soulfire Grandmaster, Ugin, and even Shaman of the Great Hunt are stronger than Whisperwood Elemental (in fact, I’m pretty sure that Monastery Mentor is going to be an eternal staple so get those while you can). While there are stronger cards than Whisperwood Elemental, there are no other cards in Fate Reforged that fit my preferred playstyle as well as Whisperwood Elemental does. I love playing decks that amass resources through repeatable effects and my tree buddy here amasses creatures like nobody’s business. Whisperwood Elemental is an ever-expanding army-in-a-can, a la Goblin Rabblemaster, but the army it creates is one of 2/2 mysteries instead of 1/1 suicidal dummies. Each of these army-makers are the epitome of their respective strategies: Rabblemaster is a goblin-ball of game ending force in aggressive decks and Whisperwood Elemental is a creeping advantage engine that makes midrange decks unstoppable. Each card is capable of winning a game by itself, but Whisperwood trades some aggression for additional survivability and stability.

Once Whisperwood hits the board you get a free 2/2 manifest creature off the top of your deck at the end of every turn. That means Whisperwood brings 6 power and 6 toughness across 2 bodies to the table simply for surviving to the end of your turn; that is a sweet deal in and of itself. The fact that the 2/2 is a manifested creature, rather than a token, is a HUGE distinction that you can’t really appreciate until you have played with Whisperwood Elemental. If you manifest a creature, you have the option to flip that creature for its mana cost or its morph cost if the creature has morph. Thus, your opponent has to be very afraid of the 2/2 creatures you are creating, especially in a green deck, for as long as you have mana open. Every time you attack or block with your 2/2 manifest dudes you could be representing a Polukranos or some other monster that could blow up combat. Your 2/2 could also be a useless land that you could not care less about. Whisperwood Elemental makes your opponent play Russian roulette with face-down creatures and you get to load another bullet into the gun every turn.

While creating an army is great, protecting that army is often the difference between winning and losing. End Hostilities is still a problem for cards like Rabblemaster for the simple fact that Rabblemaster cannot protect itself or its goblin lackeys. Whisperwood, on the other hand, can protect its manifested buddies from mass destruction spells. You can sacrifice Whisperwood Elemental to replace every face-up, nontoken creature destroyed on the turn you sacrifice it with a 2/2 manifest creature. That sacrificial ability makes Whisperwood incredibly hard to blow out with mass removal spells. If you have any mana dorks like Elvish Mystic or Rattleclaw Mystic, they get replaced with 2/2s. If you flipped any of your previously manifested creatures, those creatures get replaced with 2/2s. The army that Whisperwood leaves behind after an End Hostilities is just as mysterious and scary as the one that End Hostilities killed. The added survivability that Whisperwood Elemental provides is just a so valuable for an army maker.

Now that I’ve covered the straight forward mechanical reasons that make Whisperwood Elemental strong in a vacuum, I want to talk about the fun deck building shenanigans that you can do with Whisperwood as your centerpiece. There are a few morph related cards that were printed in Khans of Tarkir that were cool, but not especially usable in Standard. I’m talking about cards like Trail of Mystery, Ghostfire Blade, and Secret Plans. Each of these cards really needed a way to cheaply or freely flood the board with face-down creatures in order to be playable. That enabler just did not exist in Khans of Tarkir, but with Fate Reforged coming out this Friday Whisperwood Elemental is bringing the freebees. Imagine controlling a Whisperwood Elemental and a Trail of Mystery at the same time. I have lived that life and let me tell you, you run out of basic lands pretty quickly. Secret Plans is even more insane since it gives your manifested creatures an extra toughness and it lets you draw cards for flipping creatures. Even Ghostfire Blade is great when you have a consistent source of colorless creatures that don’t cost 3 mana to play.

The best part about building around Whisperwood Elemental and its constantly manifesting buddies is that you can flip manifested creatures for their mana cost or their morph cost. That means you can flip Hooded Hydra for 2 mana and still get a 5/5 creature that makes 5 1/1s when it dies. You can flip an Ashcloud Phoenix for 4 mana, deal 2 damage to each player, and start the Phoenix death/rebirth cycle. You can flip Kheru Spellsnatcher for 4 mana and snatch a spell! All of these previously slow and overcosted morph creatures suddenly become undercosted when paired with Whisperwood Elemental and manifest. With creatures like Kheru Spellsnatcher and Icefeather Aven your manifested creatures can even be game changing spells. Even better, your opponent never knows what you’re up to. There is nothing sweeter than watching your opponent kill a face-down island only for you to attack with a face-down Sagu Mauler the next turn.

I strongly advise giving manifest and Whisperwood Elemental a try in the coming weeks. It is a really fun time. In fact, some of the other members of the Giantbomb Community Endurance Run team and I were tossing around the idea of organizing some kind of GB Friday Night Magic type thing in the near future. If you would be interested playing some casual Magic with fellow GB duders then speak up! I would be happy to organize something.