I've also posted this question in the modern prices topic, though here it's more about gameplay and meta viability.
I play a quite strong midrange deck in standard and like the way decision making infuences the way the game works out for you. I have played against Abzan and absolutely love the deck, but I've always considered it to expensive!
Nowdays, I own the full abzan manabase including manlands, all supporting spells and most sideboard staples. I also own a Tarmogoyf which I pulled once and love to play with it.
Now I have the option to buy the rest (the usual suspects incl. Grim Flayer delirium, no Bob) for €400,- to €450,- which is about $500,- usd.
My local meta consists of the following decks (including my own*):
Esper Control
Dredge
Tooth&Nail
Mardu Midrange
Jeskai Tempo
BW Eldrazi
Bant Eldrazi
GB-Tron
E-tron
Elves
Humans*
Bushwhacker Aggro*
Bant Knightfall*
On FNM level, most notably add:
Grixis DS
Grixis Control
Affinity
UR Storm
The question here is: Is Abzan still a viable midrange strategy in this meta? Also, would the financial investment be stable enough for the years to come?
I know it might be heavily biassed but hope to gain some straight answers
If midrange is your calling, then invest. I am currently playing the Abzan Traverse version of the deck and have put up just short of winning it all results. The deck is very interchangeable and according to your local meta, you can do damage.
Dominiah: Relentless Dead / Plague Belcher is a Zombies theme. I'm not sure you have room for that in this deck. Besides, 2 black on T2 is not going to happen often. Defiant Greatmaw looks like a draft card, I'm not a huge fan. Eternal Ammit is probably much better.
Nest of Scarabs is something to get away from I think. It has zero board impact when you play it, and for standard this is not acceptable.
Rather, rely on Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Obelisk Spider to act as your -1/-1 triggers, and leave Nest of Scarabs as a SB option against control decks.
I get what you are saying about Nest of Scarabs but after looking at the UW Oketra's Monument deck and think, aren't we doing the same thing? Except our enchantment isn't legendary and gets bomby late game with a simple Channeler Initiate with multiple on the board. Soul-Scar Mage is something if you are going Jund to stay away from. Burn spells are terrible against control and minimal without him on the board. I literally only splashed the red for The Scorpion Godbut looking to fix the mana base, but primarily G/B. The deck can be played a lot like G/B energy if we added Traverse. We would play less lands.
Per this article (what I use, just skip ahead to the tables), you would want 12 R sources to cast Hazoret's favor on turn 3. If I count each Channeler Initiate as half an R source, I count 7 R sources, so I would add more. I really like Attune with Aether and Aether Hub for adding color sources to a 3 color deck.
As for the value of Hazoret's Favor, I am skeptical, but eager to be proven wrong. Turning a steady stream of tokens into 3 power, maybe with deathtouch, would be hard for an opponent to handle. I am less sanguine about your token engine. Against your toughest opponents, if you can't produce tokens, they will be dead cards. Saccing the tokens is a significant cost. I much prefer the unequivocal card advantage of Driven//Despair. If you believe in it, go ahead and try, but my advice would be to cut them down to 1-2 at most until you are sure that they are helpful.
Glory!!! Keep it 2 Color. Ammit Eternal and Hapatra Vizier of Poisons just screams use of Hapatra's Mark and Key to the City and Driven to Despair is a great advantage to use on your opponent. I love The Scorpion God but I cannot find a consistent mana base outside of Attune with Aether Hub or Traverse. But hey, A low to the ground deck like G/B Snek.dek this deck can compete.
Grind // Dust seems cool. Just got to play four Channeler Initiate. Like I said this is just something that I cooked up in fifteen minutes after seeing there was nothing else in Hour of Devastation. I do like Key To The City, too.
Grind to dust is cool, 2 mana put 2 -1/-1 counters on up to 2, Sounds good but it would be sideboard against Winding Constrictor decks along with Solemnity.
This deck has potential. You can build it similarly to the G/B Energy decks. Except, you can hit like a Mack Truck early and go wide late. Key to the City and Driven to Despair combos well together with Hapatra and Ammit Eternal.
If tokens is the plan, then Catacomb Sifter makes sense, and now we have an extra tool to find the good cards. Yahenni makes sense if we have enough things that dump minuses on the enemy creatures. I don't really know, some serious innovation is needed to make a consistently powerful deck.
Funny thing is, Bringing back a channeler initiate or Exemplar of Strength with Liliana while a Nest of Scarabs on board seems kind of bonkers. But I think the deck is missing a draw engine. Seasons Past or even a Rishkar Expertise seems like stretches, but having Nissa helpa drop low mana fatties is great, I am trying to maximize Westvale Abbey, the deck can grind through some stuff, going wide with tokens and adding Destined//Lead is funny
Whoever said Nest is slow hasn't tried it. But your pile of tokens would appreciate a Nissa to pump them or something like that. My problem is what to do when Nest doesn't show up. Is this still a deck in that scenario? And that's why I don't like a card such as Emrakul's Evangel. If Nest shows up things are already good. If Nest doesn't show, this card doesn't really help.
I agree Nest of Scarabs is not slow, just people doesn't like do nothing cards on turn 3. But truth to the matter the concept I feel people are looking at all wrong. Why not be a B/G tokens deck? Play Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Liliana, Death's Majesty as token generators along with Nest of Scarabs. And your creatures should consist of Yahenni, Undying Partisan just to giggle at the zombie decks and being indestructible against board wipes seems good. Plague Belcher is an Amazing 3 drop when you can dump the counters on something else. Playing Nissa, Voice of Zendikar turn 3 and dropping plague belcher turn 4 with a revolted Fatal Push sounds amazing to me. I feel that in that way Seasons Past or some other card advantage engine should be implemented.
Inventor's Goggles with Weaponcraft Enthusiast and Bastion Inventor in the main board. The sweet thing about Willy's build is the Bastion has hexproof. So playing the goggles to make him bigger is fun. I dont splash red so I just played Murder instead of Licensed Disintegration and Weaponcraft Enthusiast instead of the motorist and pia. Mana is smoother for me. Metallic Rebuke is cool, but unless you are playing the O cmc build it's not that great. The no copies of Tezzeret seems legit, he doesnt do enough for what the deck is trying to do.
Things I want to add Pulse of Murasa to the Abzan Midrange deck. I never liked Den protected because it is NOT eternal witness. The combination of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Sylvan Advocate, and Wall of Resurgence seems really good in getting to a mid to late game of Gideon Ob Nixilis and Seige Rhino. Resilient to early aggro and ramp. I am splashing drana because we need an early flier to combat other decks.
Abzan will play Hissing Quagmire and Shambling Vents. Oh can we ramp with Nissa Vastwood Seer and Explosive Vegetation? Remember what he ultimate is, make you lands 6/6. Yes and there is a 2 mana instant that makes a land a 4/4 with haste.... 2 mana, please let that sink in for a minute. Planar Outburst and Ruinous path are the only awaken cards to play. Let's also consider the new wall. Wall of Resurgence makes one of your lands a 3/3 creature.... People let's not sleep on this card. He isn't legendary so multiple of him out is silly. Will outrace most decks.
Idk. At this point I feel like Abzan colors needs to be added for added strength. Going wide seems to be the plan for most. What about Abzan Ascendancy? Add counters to our dorks and if they die we get spirits to fly over the top. Abzan charm for removal draw and counters for our small stuff. And then the idea of chord-ING for a siege Rhino sounds amazing to me for a finisher along side shaman of the pack.
I think I am going to go more of a midrange style deck with cards like Elspeth and Securing the Wastes available. I would rather play Securing the Wastes than Boon Satyr EOT. Aggro is cool for Abzan, I just feel that this has great low drops but cannot go over the top. Idk I will do some extensive testing this weekend. I have a case of this set coming my way.
If midrange is your calling, then invest. I am currently playing the Abzan Traverse version of the deck and have put up just short of winning it all results. The deck is very interchangeable and according to your local meta, you can do damage.
I get what you are saying about Nest of Scarabs but after looking at the UW Oketra's Monument deck and think, aren't we doing the same thing? Except our enchantment isn't legendary and gets bomby late game with a simple Channeler Initiate with multiple on the board. Soul-Scar Mage is something if you are going Jund to stay away from. Burn spells are terrible against control and minimal without him on the board. I literally only splashed the red for The Scorpion Godbut looking to fix the mana base, but primarily G/B. The deck can be played a lot like G/B energy if we added Traverse. We would play less lands.
Glory!!! Keep it 2 Color. Ammit Eternal and Hapatra Vizier of Poisons just screams use of Hapatra's Mark and Key to the City and Driven to Despair is a great advantage to use on your opponent. I love The Scorpion God but I cannot find a consistent mana base outside of Attune with Aether Hub or Traverse. But hey, A low to the ground deck like G/B Snek.dek this deck can compete.
Grind to dust is cool, 2 mana put 2 -1/-1 counters on up to 2, Sounds good but it would be sideboard against Winding Constrictor decks along with Solemnity.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/689425
4x Blooming Marsh
4x Channeler Initiate
2x Driven / Despair
4x Exemplar of Strength
4x Fatal Push
6x Forest (BFZ)
4x Hapatra's Mark
4x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
2x Hissing Quagmire
3x Key to the City
3x Nest of Scarabs
4x Obelisk Spider
2x Rhonas the Indomitable
8x Swamp (AKH)
2x Westvale Abbey *F*
I am sorry on my phone can't make it a deck style. But this is where I would start as far as a shell is concerned.
Playing [[Demon of Dark Schemes]] is awesome against the low to the ground aggro decks. It has a reanimator delirium sub-theme which is nice.
Funny thing is, Bringing back a channeler initiate or Exemplar of Strength with Liliana while a Nest of Scarabs on board seems kind of bonkers. But I think the deck is missing a draw engine. Seasons Past or even a Rishkar Expertise seems like stretches, but having Nissa helpa drop low mana fatties is great, I am trying to maximize Westvale Abbey, the deck can grind through some stuff, going wide with tokens and adding Destined//Lead is funny
I agree Nest of Scarabs is not slow, just people doesn't like do nothing cards on turn 3. But truth to the matter the concept I feel people are looking at all wrong. Why not be a B/G tokens deck? Play Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Liliana, Death's Majesty as token generators along with Nest of Scarabs. And your creatures should consist of Yahenni, Undying Partisan just to giggle at the zombie decks and being indestructible against board wipes seems good. Plague Belcher is an Amazing 3 drop when you can dump the counters on something else. Playing Nissa, Voice of Zendikar turn 3 and dropping plague belcher turn 4 with a revolted Fatal Push sounds amazing to me. I feel that in that way Seasons Past or some other card advantage engine should be implemented.
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Plague Belcher
Channeler Initiate
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Scarab Nest
Everything else should just be "good stuff" in Golgari Colors
Inventor's Goggles with Weaponcraft Enthusiast and Bastion Inventor in the main board. The sweet thing about Willy's build is the Bastion has hexproof. So playing the goggles to make him bigger is fun. I dont splash red so I just played Murder instead of Licensed Disintegration and Weaponcraft Enthusiast instead of the motorist and pia. Mana is smoother for me. Metallic Rebuke is cool, but unless you are playing the O cmc build it's not that great. The no copies of Tezzeret seems legit, he doesnt do enough for what the deck is trying to do.