[Standard] Abzan Lords

[_Lesur_]

Hey guys. This is a deck I've been working on for a couple of weeks now. I've been trying to make Abzan work since Guilds. Let me know what you think and please don't hesitate to give recommendations or changes you'd make. I've included the justification for my card choices below as well as the style of the deck. Hope you enjoy.



Abzan Lords

This deck focuses on playing a single Silhana Wayfinder or Militia Bugler and rolling into another to quickly build up a board before playing multiple lord effects in quick succession. It also runs mana creatures to allow you to ramp into those lord effects quickly if needed. Every creature meets the requirements to be fetched and all have an additional upside to just being a body.

All the removal is versatile so you never have a 'dead spell' and the planeswalkers bring plenty of value. Ajani has his own lord effect in his +1 that also turns on your Incubation Druid and his -2 provides great value both at returning dead creatures and allowing a Wayfinder to begin the chain all over again while Vivien provides crucial card draw late game and can shut down Search for Azcanta, Hydroid Krasis and Wilderness Reclamation, 3 of the most played cards in the format. Her ultimate ability also provides a lord emblem for additional thematics.

Radiant Destiny is there for the vigilance. You will mostly be naming elf however you have the options of dryad, soldier and spirit may also see use. Trostani has great versatility. Besides lording, she also generates lifelink tokens that can help slow the game down against aggro and can return creatures taken by Thief of Sanity or Hostage Taker once they enter the battlefield. She is also searchable, being hit by both Wayfinder and Bugler which allows you to dig and fairly reliably hit her. Ethereal Absolution is the latest and most impactful lord effect, both buffing your creatures and debuffing your opponents. This make is a lot easier to trade your creatures with big drops your opponents make, such as a Carnage Tyrant or a big Wildgrowth Walker, as well as dealing with the explore package of Jadelight Ranger and Merfolk Branchwalker, Llanowar Elves and Pteromander straight off.

Arguel's Blood Fast is a 1 of in the deck with a surprising amount of versatility. An early Temple of Aclazotz helps you recover from creatures being targeted by burn spells and other removal in aggro matchups and can sometimes buy you enough extra life to allow you to stabilise while against control decks it keeps you up in card advantage. Flower / Flourish is the other unmentioned card. The flower side lets you fix your mana by giving you the option for a white or green mana. Since our black is only a splash searching for a swamp isn't as important and with our other tools we consistently hit it when needed. Flourish is the real winner though. A late game Flourish will typically be used to Alpha Strike our opponent for the win or threaten enough damage that they need to chump, whittling down on their board presence. This is especially effective because we have a bit of a 'go wide' strategy with many smaller but value-generating creatures.