[Standard] Abzan Midrange Standard before PT in the making

[G. Moto]

Congrats to you man, that i some mighty fine playing you've been doing there. What do you think contributed most to your success?

[VayChow]

Knowing which card to sideboard in and out. Even when luck is not really kind (mull down to 5 in one of the rounds), but by having 4 dusk hard counter in the deck gives a chance to fight back.

After Atherworks went out of the format, it seems quite popular people now gearing more towards BG, Zombies, or big fatty dudes deck.

Next update will be tweaking the main 60 more towards handling creatures and Sideboard 15 against control.

[VayChow]

Revision 16

Added/removed cards:
-1 Flaying Tendrils
+2 Painful Truths
+1 Prepare // Fight
-1 (SB) Anguished Unmaking
-2 (SB) Gonti, Lord of Luxury
-1 (SB) To the Slaughter
+3 (SB) Dissenter's Deliverance
+1 (SB) Ob Nixilis Reignited

Changed amounts:
-1 Cast Out
+1 Catacomb Sifter
+1 (Main) -1 (SB) Dusk // Dawn
-2 (Main) +2 (SB) Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
-1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
-1 (SB) Tireless Tracker

[VayChow]

Revision 17

Added/removed cards:
-1 Aethersphere Harvester
-1 Bontu the Glorified
-3 Catacomb Sifter
-1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
+2 Gnarlwood Dryad

Changed amounts:
-1 Aether Hub
+1 Cast Out
+1 Dissenter's Deliverance
+1 (Main) -1 (SB) Ob Nixilis Reignited
+1 Painful Truths
+1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
+1 (SB) Tireless Tracker

[VayChow]

Revision 18

Added/removed cards:
-1 Heart of Kiran
-1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
+1 Aethersphere Harvester
+1 Noxious Gearhulk
-2 (SB) Tireless Tracker
+2 (SB) Flaying Tendrils
+1 (SB) Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Changed amounts:
-1 Dissenter's Deliverance
+1 (Main) -1 (SB) Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
-1 (Main) +1 (SB) Prepare // Fight
+1 Swamp
-1 (SB) Dusk // Dawn

This should be the final version moving into Hour of Devastation.

Pros:
- Very high chance against control decks.
- Very well balanced deck against meta decks.

Cons:
- Weakness against mono white humans. Thankfully, white human is not a thing currently.
- Weakness against blue-white monuments.
- Stumble against classic mardu vehicles. Post Sideboard is alright though.

Manage 3 out of 5 Atherhub with this deck at my LGS past months while brewing this deck.

[G. Moto]

 Interesting. It looks like I'm seeing some life gain in this deck as well. You think that Life gain should serve as a back up plan rather than a main battle strategy?

[VayChow]

The lifegain is to balance up the life loses from painful truth. It is part of the main strategy but not the core. The core is still hitting delirium as fast as possible and then jammed out delirium payoff cards to close the game. I have considered running 5 pieces of lifegain solely, but this won't allow me to consistently hit my sweeper card dusk. Same goes with sweeper. Running 4 dusk seems too overplayed. 3 Painful Truth running together 2 pieces of lifegain (Aetherspehere Harvester, and Black Gearhulk) can almost guarantee to hit these 2 cards in 80% of the matches played. Therefore, a combination of 3 painful truth, 2 lifegain and 2 sweeper are more well balanced.

Prepare//Fight and Kalitas serve as the 3rd and 4th lifegain against some really fast aggro and burn deck.

Black Gearhulk is preferred over Prepare//Fight because of the synergy with Traverse and Lili. Black Gearhulk is guaranteed to make a play when it goes into 8th turn. This also served as the boss card for this deck and replaces SovereignSky Ship or Ob Nixilis. Long time ago, this spot was always reserved for Emrakul, The Promised End but she got banned. In hour of devastation, will be looking at some possible cards for this spot.

[G. Moto]

So do you want to go wide with this deck or do you want to focus strong hits with a few creatures....or one alpha strike?

[VayChow]

Focus strong hit with few creatures.

[G. Moto]

 Then i'd recommend the ol' Abzan way by creatures that have the ability to buff each other's stats up, +1/+1 counters and combat tricks that will help your particular creatures survive in and out of combat. Also evasion spells such as vizier of deferment who can flicker a creature (which can also save one of yours if it's targeted for removal).

[VayChow]

Will test it out sometimes. If found to be effective, then will post a new deck.

[G. Moto]

 Ok I'll be waiting to see what becomes of it.

[VayChow]

Revision 19

Added/removed cards:
-2 Gnarlwood Dryad
-1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
-1 Noxious Gearhulk
+1 (Main) +1 (SB) Bontu's Last Reckoning
+1 Resilient Khenra
-2 (SB) Flaying Tendrils
-2 (SB) Pick the Brain
-1 (SB) Prepare // Fight
+2 (SB) Doomfall
+3 (SB) Liliana's Defeat
+3 (SB) Saving Grace

Changed amounts:
+2 (Main) -3 (SB) Dissenter's Deliverance
-1 Dusk // Dawn
+1 (Main) -1 (SB) Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

[G. Moto]

I'm seeing some legendary action going on here. So how do you feel about the deck, do you think that it's starting to take a new direction?

[VayChow]

Been testing some of the new cards.

Ramunap excavator - I thought this could be a thing in this deck but after testing out, doesn't seems to fit well in a delirium theme.
Resilient Khenra - Fits really well into this deck, but playing 2 copies or more makes starting hand weak when in the starting 7. So, just 1 piece mainboard.
Saving Grace - Really good uncommon. Probably deserve a slot or 2 in the main board. Too many hour of devastation running around these days.
Doomfall - Great. Just a Great card.

The deck feels faster up a notch now. Cast out seems to be a great answer to the Gods from this set. The part which makes me sad is there is no god from this set that can be added into this deck.