MTG Salvation

Hi guys!

Did anyone notice how awesome manifest is? No? Well how about we discuss ways to abuse manifest for days!

The biggest issue I run into with manifest is the accidental manifesting (accidentanifest) of certain cards.
For example, if I run Sarkhan or Liliana in my deck, I do so with the intention of playing those cards at some point.
Same goes with Fetchlands, Mana Confluences and the like. So how can we avoid these problems?

Athreos, God of Passage - Whenever your manifest dies, just get it back into your hand. Athreos is nice here because he himself can be manifested and revealed for a low mana cost. Either swing in the 2/2 or Collateral Damage or Sacrifice it, save the goodies and cast them next turn.

Not running red? An overlooked card is Peel From Reality , normally not very great but here it can be very useful as a combination of card-saving and cheap temporary removal.

However the best way to break Manifest, is with arguably the worst rare in Theros block. Triad of Fates
Let me explain. If you have manifested a permanent, any permanent, you can put a fate counter on it during your opponent's end-step and flicker it back into play face-up on your next turn for the the total cost of 1 colorless and 1 white. Planeswalkers, Enchantments, even massive CMC bulldozers like Stormtide Leviathan or Colossus of Akros would work, theoretically on turn 5 or 6.

I've been experimenting with a morph/manifest Abzan deck, with the face-up Enchantments like Trail of Mystery and the new Master the Unseen its done fairly well, and i am still tuning it a little for standard.

These are just some techniques I have thought of. I would love to hear your ideas!

I've been trying to do a manifest/blink deck in modern. I'm a terrible deckbuilder, but I've met with moderate success on cockatrice with it. It seems like something that could 'get there' with the right support.

That sounds great, there is definitely a lot more flicker outside of standard. One of my friends is attempting to build a triad of the fates deck around this manifest/flicker mechanic right now. Something really awesome is the synergy between reveal morphs - like Ruthless Ripper , morph enchantments and manifest - basically morph in for free, unmorph for free. I really feel there are ways to abuse this.

I have a really mean Dimir Discard/Mill Deck featuring Altar of the Brood and Ghastly Conscription , when that goes off it is pure gold.

There were two guys running Mono green decks with Temur Sabertooth and Whisperwood Elemetal. They a bit rough still but once they got going it was basically draw a for card G1 or get a 2/2 dude at the end of every one of your turns .

There were two guys running Mono green decks with Temur Sabertooth and Whisperwood Elemetal. They a bit rough still but once they got going it was basically draw a for card G1 or get a 2/2 dude at the end of every one of your turns .

How have I missed Temur Sabertooth !!! That would be really good in my Abzan Morph/Manifest deck! Thanks man!

That is some interesting stuff. I had not thought about Triad of Fates. Maybe that is because my brother and I have been working on a UWG manafest build. Here is where we are at at the moment:



This may or may not give you some ideas. We don't have Temur Sabertooth currently on our list because the deck is a little slow already and usually has stuff to do with the mana, and Sabertooth adds another slow element, even if it does add some extra options.

The weaknesses with our decklist are the lack of anti aggro and lack of removal, but we were trying to focus hardcore on manifest. We will see how it turns out.

I'm guessing, "because the mana is rough" is the answer, but, Why soul summons over wildcall?

You got it. Already hard to get to WW or UU by turn 3 for either Lightform or Cloudform and with Icefeather Aven being 2 distinct colors if played on turn 2, there is too much vying for different colored mana on the early turns. Don't get me wrong, I love Wildcall and would instantly play it over soul summons if I thought it could be a consistent turn 2 with the ability to follow up, but alas, I do not believe that it would be so.

Young Quaker Boy, thats a nice start.
Since you have 4x Trail of mystery do you really require the Master of Pearls? In my experience, that's simply too expensive to activate, and Trail does the +2/+2 anyway...
If you want more Aggro / Speed I would advise Watcher of the Roost and Temur Charger The ability to unmorph for card reveal is simply too beautiful to ignore. Similarily, you might want to run Dragon's Eye Savants as a sideboard tack to counter aggro.
If your worried about the +2/+2, just put in a few Ghostfire Blade . Also, I would think about switching out one or two hooded hydras for Sagu Mauler , because a 5/5 without trample is a stalled victory at best.

Also, I would like to point out that Black is a perfectly good manifest color.
I mean, Sultai Emissary turn two will provide manifest early game, and
Ruthless Ripper is just about the best morpher out there as it causes your opponent to ALWAYS worry that ruthie is one of your face-down cards.

Unless you're interested exclusively in breaking Manifest in Standard (which cannot be done at the moment without jumping through big hoops like the Sabertooth + Elemental one I think) try to look at the bigger picture: a build using cards like Leveler, Eater of Days and Phyrexian Dreadnought, based in Blue to have some bounce in case non-creature permanents hit the field and backed up by a second control color to absolutely dominate the game after you drop one of these threats. In Standard you have Hooded Hydra, which is a 5/5 that leaves five tokens behind for GG. I think we should be looking at stupidly-big creatures with low casting costs like those mentioned, and efficient ways to bounce non-creature spells that hit the field.

Quote from Curchanus »

Young Quaker Boy, thats a nice start.
Since you have 4x Trail of mystery do you really require the Master of Pearls? In my experience, that's simply too expensive to activate, and Trail does the +2/+2 anyway...
If you want more Aggro / Speed I would advise Watcher of the Roost and Temur Charger The ability to unmorph for card reveal is simply too beautiful to ignore. Similarily, you might want to run Dragon's Eye Savants as a sideboard tack to counter aggro.
If your worried about the +2/+2, just put in a few Ghostfire Blade . Also, I would think about switching out one or two hooded hydras for Sagu Mauler , because a 5/5 without trample is a stalled victory at best.

if you manifested master of pearls you can flip him for 2 instead of 5. Also I think mastery of the unseen is a must in here. Provides so much inevitability and a ton of life gain. I don't think the blue seems worth it. Better off just running GW with some ramp, maybe splash black for triad and SB Toughtseize

In modern you have Mistmeadow Witch, and Windbrisk Heights, there's also Flickerwisp and Restoration Angel, there are already some builds of D&T that run the red Akroma yo pull this trick.

I'd probably rather be on UG or GW and splash the other color, this way, you get acces to mana acceleration and courser, which helps you get more value out of manifest.

In casual, I really like the interaction between Brago, King Eternal and Lightform / Cloudform. He can blink the creatures to unmorph them and also blink the enchantments to manifest more creatures every turn.

I've wanted to test something like this for a while now. Unfortunately, while I have all the cards, I haven't had time to actually play in the last few weeks.



The deck is an old hybrid of BridgeNought, Eureka, Counterbalance and Manifest. The main allure is that Mosswort Bridge allow you to cast the spells, so Emrakul will get the Time Walk -trigger. Bridge is also a great back-up for a midgame Dreadnought. Most likely I'm trying to accomplish too much and need to prune the elements a bit as the Counterbalance feels a bit forced, but I love having all the manifest, Stifle and Bridge synergies with Dreadnought, so it's rarely a dead card. And you can drop two Noughts from Eureka and let one be eaten, so you get to keep one. Same trick that works if you have another Nought beneath the Bridge also. Without the Counterbalance I would try Knight of the Reliquary as another engine and beater, which would also help the Stifle and Wasteland -duo to keep opponents honest. Yet most likely it's the Eureka, which should be dropped, but I have a playset and really want to use them.

The white producing lands are there currently mainly for allowing one to SB in Terminusses and making people guess what you could have. I would love some way to flip possibly manifested Emrakuls, but Mistmeadow Witch just doesn't make it in and flickering is not usable in protecting Dreadnoughts from removal, so I will have to playtest quite a bit to find a good solution. Maybe heavier white and Flickerwisp could be the solution, it allows remanifests from Cloudform but is sorcery speed, giving your opponent a turn to answer Emrakul. Or just admit defeat and actually play Momentary Blink.

One card I know I will want in the sideboard is Summoning Trap, which can lead to some serious blowouts when your opponent is not expecting it. I've been playing with the card in legacy before and it's just what one needs for the control matches if you are running enough big creatures. Maybe this would again be the deck for it.