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Whisperwood Elemental

Whisperwood Elemental is one of a few cards with the Manifest keyword. It’s an interesting one, potentially turning lands into 2/2 creatures or letting you beat with a dude for a while until you can afford to flip him up instead of having to pay 3 colorless or having him stranded in your hand.

Manifest aside, Whisperwood Elemental has a very interesting bit of anti-wrath tech in his second ability. It’s essentially a free Fresh Meat for your non-facedown creatures. This card is no Voice of Resurgence but he reminds me of a combination of two cards that defined their era. The first card is Loxodon Hierarch. Hierarch had a good casting cost to power and toughness ratio and a very, very good first ability. WhereSiege Rhino fails to measure up to Hierarch is in Hierarch’s second ability. Some people forgot you could even regenerate your side. I’ve also used Hierarch’s sac ability to make an opponent whiff on getting counters on Umezawa’s Jitte. Being able to stuff a wrath for free is useful if that is their only out to your swarm of guys.

The second card I’m reminded of is Huntmaster of the Fells. Again, no lifegain here, but you are getting a 2/2 creature every turn on top of a solid 4/4 creature. This could be the new Huntmaster variant in midrange. I think these two abilities are very good in a green midrange type deck. You can play mana ramp to get this out early, pay to flip up manifested creatures and have more fodder for Whisperwood’s Ultimate sacrifice.

I think this card is reminiscent of enough cards, including also the initially-underratedMaster of the Wild Hunt that there is a real possibility that this card will be worth more than its presale price. Depending how cheap I see these, I may want to gamble on the presale price if it’s around $5. I think this has significant upside and a significant chance of being mis-evaluated.