Hello. After quite a small fortune trying to make Mykthos Devotion work in competitive modern, I've decided to play Pillowfort Prison as a better devotion alternative even if I just let go inadvertently of my playset of Nykthos lands. Don't ask why.
But I am running the older Green-White ramp to Sphere of Safety plus Sigil of the Empty Throne win con.
Does running four of Crumble to Dust help with Tron or at least running Fertile Ground help the deck out race Tron and lock it out?
I updated my recent post on the Mirrorweave plus Primalcrux build I posted to make it easier to understand. Essentially it is Primalcrux and Khalni Hydra plus Fungal Sprouting and Mirrorwaave as the Overrun on Steroids.
The original theme of Devotion Green was to play a board of enough green permanents to flood mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for enough mana for a Craterhoof Behemoth or activating Garruk Wildspeaker's ultimate for lethal "Overrun" on a stick.
The other win con was to lock an opponent out with Primal Command and Eternal Witness, keeping him drawing a land, while you built a devotion weenie board slowly then tutoring for Hoofdaddy to win.
The Mirrorweave and Primalcrux wincon Devotion build only works if you have more creatures ready to attack for lethal when everything becomes a Primalcrux.
And you actually need to have six green ready by the turn 3 via Overgrown Battlement scaling with other walls plus a Wistful Selkie in play or white/blue mana from your lands for the Mirrorweave casting by turn 4 or later.
Alex recommends a board build up for a turn 6 win con after having Devotion online with a Nykthos activation. The Primalcrux can actually get the job done better if a 6 turn clock is your win con. It doesn't have to be able to attack on its own to win. You just have to be able to cast Mirrorweave on the same turn that Primalcrux played, or cast it the next turn and have Primalcrux attack too. A singleton Fungal Sprouting allows for the board to fill up with extra Primalcrux copies and it buys you time if you don't draw Mirrorweave already.
The full playset of Wistful Selkies enables you to Nukthos devotion mana float for blue.
Mirrorweave can also be used to copy the opponents' fatty creatures like nonlegendary Eldrazi or Primeval Titans or Wurmcoil Engines which makes it a smarter choice than a Garruk Wildspeaker overrun.
An unseemly choice for Devotion big beats is the Khalni Hydra. With 4 green creatures in play, you can cast an 8/8 trampling hydra for only 4 green, and that goes down with more green creatures. It also enables devotion for 8 plus whatever green you already have in play. Unfortunately, it's a dead card in your hand once the opponent sweeps your board and you can't hard cast it. Using mana walls allows you to drop one quickly though and given the choice for dropping a *****ty tireless tracker or the ranger for a devotion vanilla creature, you can drop an 8/8 trample that the opponents must kill, or it wins the game in a few swings. Killing the Khalni allows your other fatties, the Primalcrux to hit play with the opponent expending his hand of creature kill so you force the opponent to play defensively and then you drop the Primalcrux bomb then Mirrorweave so your Walls and BTE become Primalcruxen.
Use 4 X Fertile Ground instead of Utopia Sprawl because it can be make your lands produce any color over naming the kind of color Utopia Sprawl will make. In this build you can also insert a singleton Trostani Selesnya's Voice and build a 2 x Genesis Wave deck, when the wave resolves and you order your stack, have Trostani resolve first then ETB effects of other creatures before the huge life gain from Primalcrux triggering Trostani's ability.
This deck only works off a build with Overgrown Battlement as a playset and 2 x or more Sylvan Caryatid such that with two creatures and three lands, you can actually hardcast a Primalcux by turn 3 on your mana dork walls instead of getting them in via Genesis Wave. Also required is at least one Karametra's Acolyte in case you don't draw your Nykthos land.
The Build is advantageous because it works off Jamie Wakefield's original advice for any kind of mono green deck:
Prowling Serpopard helps you get past counter magic and the Walls are better in the mid game as a deceptive blocker which turns into a copy of Primalcrux once you get mana fixed with lands.
Activate Arbor Elf on Fertile Ground on Forest, or Wistful Selkies in play with Nykthos and naming Blue to cast Mirrorweave on Primalcrux making all creatures in play Primalcrux and you only need one to punch through for lethal even with blockers on the opponents side.
By itself Primalcrux is so rude with Khalni Hydra as the first thing you plop down then hit the Genesis Wave. WIth both Primalcux and Khalni in play, you are assured of an alpha strike win con without Mirrorweave or Genesis Wave.
Unlike the first iterations of Genesis Wave, you need several creaures to pump for a good spread, but for one Khalni Hydra resolved, you get the same or better explosive effect for activating a bigger Genesis Wave.
Been playtesting with Khalni Hydra, and discovered that it's a bomb and almost like an Affinity like Broodstar. The build of my deck has 4 Overgrown Battlement and 2 Sylvan Caryatid, so I get to stick 2 extra creatures that my opponent does not want to waste their Fatal Push on or waste a Lighting Bolt,since Spike players tend to keep at least 2 Bolts until they get you down to 6 after whatever creature they have beats face to you. Playing 2 X Prowling Serpopard ensures that your Khalni Hydra does not get Mana Leaked or Remanded. The key here being, a 4th turn Devotion for 8 sticking on the board and enabling a huge Genesis Wave or a Primalcrux follow up for Big Stompy finish. If you have an Aspect of Hydra in hand when you successfully resolve a Khalni Hydra, attacking with a Burning Tree Emissary or Wistful Selkie brings them down to 2 or 1.
The card may be so underrated because players overlook the Chroma devotion CMC reduction when one has dorks in the battlefield. If you play Serpopard you get around anything getting countered and I play 2, thinking of going a full playset. When it sticks and you still have bombs like Primalcrux or Primeval Titan or Ruric Thar the Unbowed in hand, you can't lose.
I for one think the use of planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker slow down the deck and the only reason for using the Garruk untapper is to flood mana for a huge Walking Ballista, but otherwise, the 4th turn Garruk disallows a fattie for beatface.
The thing about a Garruk Wildspeaker build is you need creatures that are sticky enough and that build does much better as a Primalcrux build.
Instead of building around Garruk, which is a dead board without creatures, it's just an overrun stick win con. Better to build off the concept and theme instituted by the legendary Jamie Wakefield.
If you play mono green, PLAY DISRUPTION--Primal Crommand or Plow Under or even a Terastodon as best bets, PLAY RAMP as dorks, devotion enablers, or land fetch, then PLAY a FATTIE to finish the game--which just means either Primalcrux, Primeval Titan, Khalni Hydra, or Deus of Calamity because these sync nicely with devotion.
Just using Nykthos as your mana flood enabler is a flawed design because Spreading Seas and Ghost Quarter or Crumble to Dust makes your entire deck useless. You can work around this with stuff like Summoning Trap, Wall dork mana, Elves tribal mana, or any other green centric strengths.
I'd like to see more Primalcrux centric win conditions like Mirrorweave and Prowling Serpopard to guarantee it hitting the board, or Aspect of Hydra, even Doubling Chant might make a nice creature doubler of what's already there for devotion flood mana.
We're playing mono G or at best hybrid Gruul or Simic. There must be a nice monster you can swing with and use the devotion mechanic to your advantage.
Guys if you play mono green anything, shouldn't we win with a big Monster? Or else, it ain't worth winning at all. If we wanted grindy stuff we'd play Stompy in the first place. But for the sheer explosiveness of Devotion,maybe even some of the Standard builds of Nykthos may also be more potent than current Modern builds.
The build of the video was rather underwhelming. He didn't have enough big beats inside the deck that when his midgame came around all the opponent needed was to spot removal everything he played.
The only times he won was when he started FAST and the opponent had a slow hand. This is imperative for ANY modern deck. You cannot play a slow hand or the control player outplays you with a meta counter to your deck: heavy spot removal.
There was his game with a Genesis Wave twice over that didn't plop down a single FATTY even if he won the game, and this part of his deck is what disturbs me. You need a curve of FATTYs inside like Alex's Arbor Colossus.
In Jamie Wakefield style old school Secret Force mono green deck, when you plop down a FATTY it is supposed to be Game Over for the opponent.
This fascination for grindy decks that keep putting blocker-attackers into play is rather counterintuitive to a mono green deck and it may be the reason why the deck is rather inconsistent. The mana Wall build is understandable because it scales a mana flood with just three Walls into play with either just one Overgrown Battlement,or a Axebane Guardian and any two Walls. Even with no Nykthos in play. That is your sleight of hand mana ramp schtick: mana Walls into Primalcrux then a possible Mirrorweave for the sick Overrun alternative with all your dorks turning into Primalcrux.
Over time playing the deck, I've noticed that if you build board position, you must have something to punch through such as a Fatty by turn 4 to force them to tap out for spot removal, then pump your remaining devotion dorks that attack with Aspect of Hydra. Opponents can always run three spot removals in a row by midgame from their goldfishing for hand or board control, which is what defeats the original playstyle of putting in weak devotion dorks.
Using any kind of sticky dudes inside to keep something active for the mana flood when it comes may not be as good as having a mana alternative or ramp alternative, but this is just me thinking of trade offs between Kitchen Finks and going with Overgrown Battlement.
That being discussed, Mirrorweave is still a sideboard card if you play Primalcrux because if the opponent has untapped dorks, they become Primalcrux too. But this negates any of their abilities and they just become big fat and stupid green so you can still punch through with one green mana and an Aspect of Hydra. Playing without a playset of Planeswalkers might also be an option espcially if all the opponent has to do is to board wipe your creatures. Better that extra 2 Garruks become a Polukranos or a Chameleon Colossus or even an extra Ruric Thar the Unbowed.
In a metagame with plenty of spot removal and auto loss to board wipe and handkill or land D solutions, Winning with Devotion requires keeping a fast opening hand. A slow hand equals an autoloss, Modern wins are a 4 turn clock for most decks. They either lock out your board with spot removal or counter magic or they out aggro or out combo you. If you tweak for explosive curves and know how the deck does its job you will adjust according to Spike play at best.
Alex goes all in for his two Nykthos drops then bomb out with X mana. He has spike cards like Blood Moon and Abrade, so you have to consider that aspect of what kind of win condition you want. Disrupt an opponent's early game to ensue the more explosive mana flood of Devotion to grind out your win.
You have to deal with the opponent's set up in the first three to four turns. Whether you get an early Primal Command and Eternal Witness lock or you use Aspect of Hydra and hasty hits with Strangleroot Geist and Boggart Ram Gang against slower decks.
The Turntimber Ranger and Arcane Adaptation build is extremely vulnerable to handkill and spot removal. So if it is your only win con, it's a casual Modern win con that won't get you anywhere in Spike tournament environments. BUT. You can build a deck around this combo as secondary win condition, and you might include synergy cards like one Reaoer King, Summoning Trap, Xenagod and Genesis Hydra, and Temur Sabertooth. The goal for the combo is to let it through so you will need stuff like Prowling Serpopard to avoid countermagic when casting the 5cmc Ranger, and Summoning Trap to get a second Ranger inside the deck out if the first gets countered.
Building around the combo still involves getting devotion early and running early blockers. I tried to use Mirrorweave in the Ranger Build with Arcane Adaptation to use the Blue part to make my Sylvan Caryatids and Overgrown Battlements into Primalcrux and swing for 60 plus if the opponent does tap out. I also put in Urabrask and Privileged Position to protect the combo pieces once they were in play. As it stands the Adaptation with Ranger is way too slow for Valakut Scapeshift, Skred, Death Shadow, and even Jeskai Control or Jund and I played the deck once in a tournament environment and losing spectacularly.
If you can stall an opponent's board to set up the combo via a Genesis Wave situation with devotion at 7 to 8 maybe you can insert the pieces as playsets inside a traditional Genesis Wave deck and create overkill with Reaper King, naming the second Adaptation that hits the board as Scarecrows. But that's 9 cards inside a 39 card deck, so that means you need a 15 card devotion dork suite and 2 or 3 Genesis Wave plus Genesis Hydra and Xenagod as other options. The only way to win with the Adaptation-Ranger combo is to stall them out and hit the combo. I also used the crap card Leyline of Sanctity and used somebody's suggestion of Trostani Selesnya Voice for infinite life additional security and you get it into play during the first land drop but it is absolutely crap when top decked. It makes Primalcrux extra fat in the butt too if you run it. Prowling Serpopard is a must in the Adaptation-Ranger combo. You can put one or two Privileged Position too. So you see it is way too slow but it is grindy when you can last several land drops or actually use land ramp. My build worked off Mana Walls for fast ramp with Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian, with opponent baffled what the heck my deck was doing, but I always got overwhelmed by Goblins or a fat Tarmogoyf and spot removal or a Supreme Verdict clearing board. It is a fun build for casual Modern but absolutely horrendous against a Spike tournament environment.
Humans and Hatebear kill you outright. I've never used Walking Ballista yet but maybe that might turn the tide.
Enjoy your Devotion Builds guys. But whatever you use, know how the meta works. Early explosive turns wins it nicely, If you ever play slow hands, it's an autoloss. Need to have a one CMC and curve to 5 devotion by turn 3 or have 5 mana available by turn two, any slower than that turns games into what CurdBros and other guys here call grindout games, and spot removal and board wipe usually win it for them unless you have the Primal Command Witness build to recover board position.
Off playtesting the deck I've noticed that the board dorks with devotion need to ramp into a fatty devotion dork to impose a threat level that overwhelms an opponent. If you can plop down a Deus of Calamity by turn 3 or 4, it immediately places so much pressure on the opponent to kill your fatty, and if he doesn't even with summoning sickenss, the fatty enables an almost lethal devotion attack from a Prowling Serpopard and other devotion dorks like a BTE or Strangleroot Geist by pump with Aspect of Hydra.
The philosophy behind putting a fatty in play immediately like Arbor Colossus from Alex's list or Deus of Calamity as my preferred fatty is to force them to spend mana and lose their Path to Exile, help us get more land ramp in, and to pave the way for the Primalcrux to hit the board. If they tap out early, the Aspect of Hydra pumps for almost lethal with only 5 or 6 life remaining.
Although given there are Snapcaster Mage's in any White splash decks, playing with Prowling Serpopard guarantees bigger early hits, forces them to cuse up their Lightning Bolts instead of waiting for lethal range to close out.
This build may not necessarily be a pure BIG STOMPY deck with Nykthos as an additional pump.
But you can't ignore Aspect of Hydra's potential to make the window for the opponent to survive shorter.
They get shocked that even if they kill your fatty, or wait it out because of summoning sickness, an unblocked dork like a Serpopard will net up to 11 damage or more in one swing.
Given minus 1 from fetch and minus 2 from Shocklands, that means they get below 10 so fast, they start to throw everything at your small guys or save them for your next fatty, in any case, if they kill a Strangleroot Geist, he comes back and you let them expend a spot removal spell while using up mana, and you put down another fatty, whether that be Primalcrux or Primeval Titan.
I'm looking at Devotion Modern Green now as counting down before they get card advantage for disrupting your hand or board, then taking over with their Celestial Colonnade or blue creature, or you forcing the issue by making countermagic dead cards, and forcing opponents to cast spot removals and lose card advantage, an early game Aspect of Hydra is always the BIG PLAY in this scenario, followed by big daddy after big daddy.
If you do manage to add any more stuff, try counting the play by play of your builds. As Aggro Jamie Wakefield aka Secret Force, but casting a Fatty, we can tweak for See the Unwritten or Summoning Trap, or put in one or two Privileged Position to make the Aspect Pump so difficult to recover from.
The goal again is to set up board with one or two devotion dorks that include Prowling Serpopard so that your next fatty gets down clean and you can cast an Aspect of hydra on any unblcoked attacker to push their life down to two swings.
If this is the best way to build on BIG STOMPY with some options for pulling out stuff like Ruric Thar the Unbowed, to make any spot removal game over, as the second or third fatty via Primal Command or any creature tutor. The kill against any control deck may be faster too this way. instead of overloading on blockers, as is the usual route of devotion green, blocker devotion creeps into Craterhoof or Garruk Overrun--both o which is inherently a weaker strategy because the opponent will just disrupt your hand to limit the devotion curve or blow up your board. A third turn fatty protected by Prowling Serpopard is serious clock for anyone to build around.
The other rouite is multiple BTE into Craterhoof, or Garruk is already built in for the listed Primalcrux build, You just have to play it a certain way. And swing at once for the Serpopard if you can make a Deus of Calamity stick. The ETB snootiness of Devotion builds may be overrated, like Acidic Slime or any other 5 CMC creature, the slot is really best served by Deus just for the imminent threat of overwhelming plus the sweet clock reduction via Aspect of Hydra. You don't play Aspect for defense either, you go to the head if an unblocked creature punches through to make it tougher on them to defend or to mana fix with shock lands or fetches.
Having a 5 CMC Devotion creature that is difficult to kill aside from Path to Exile or dedicated black burn spells is highly underrated and I know the long timers on the board have different playstyles thinking a more resilient build with smaller devotion is preferable because of the Craterhoof alpha strike.
Deus sets up Primalcrux, and if you are lucky enough for a sweet devotion presence with other devotion dorks, you get lethal via any topdeck Aspect of Hydra or one already in hand..
Playtested a casual game against a Jeskai deck with a win con based on flipping a 3/2 flyer off cantrip spells and putting Geist on the board to swing as finisher while protecting both with spot removal and counterspells.
Prowling Serpopard was a bomb in the match-up. Even if the opponent nuked it with Path or Lightning Bolt, staying on the board with at least 5 to 6 devotion and at least one swing from it in a race turned into a clock the opponents coult not race. You need Aspect of Hydra to win of course. You can now maindeck Deus of Calamity for better devotion and the damn thing will stick with one Serpopard in play. Countermagic is a little *****ty if you play with a full set of Serpopard plus one Gaea's Revenge upon sideboarding, but Serpopard swings hard early game that one unchecked swing with Aspect of Hydra makes it a one turn game.
I've found out that in those games when the opponent does Spreading Seas on your Nykthos, the only reason for playing Aspect of Hydra is to have your dumb weenie horde still be of any value with at least one unblocked creature and the pump spell in hand.
Using the Primalcrux build and not having any Planeswalkers is okay as long as you can plop down fatties by turn 3 or 4 and keep them coming. A good board that sneaks in even just one attacker, pumped by Aspect of Hydra gets them down to 5, this with Prowling Serpopard as the first swing and the opponent trusting they can outrace your damage output because they have spot removal. Replacing the explore creature, you can actually get a ramp elf that fetches a basic land, that's 3 to cast and it thins out the deck of one Forest and keeps you a body blocker in the battlefield. Ywo land fetch elves are my picks plus two to three Prowling Serpopards as early beats that set up a Primalcrux or a Deus of Calamity that cannot be countered. Those fatties don't have to last until next turn, you swing at them with an open Serpopard and if they don't block the Devotion pump from the fattie via ASpect of Hydra is lethal.
Aspect of Hydra makes a nuked Nukthos in your battlefield irrelevant, as the opponent expends mana for spreading seas but opens itself up to a swing and a free Aspect of Hydra pump for devotion almost lethal if not lethal.
Talking about Sticky Dudes, Do you guys know of any more regenerating dorks like Mire Boa, methinks a budget build with 2CmC G regenerate weenies like Mire Boa. Do you guys know of any cheap regenerating 2 or 3 to cast dorks with Regenerate in Modern format?
Since our most vulberable opponent has Fatal Push and discard, running 3 or 4 Mire Boa's main can punish them early if we keep that one green mana untapped when we attack each turn. It also forces them to play two spot removals unless it's a Path.
Everybody has probably had the worst match with heavy discard Jund or GDS.
I'll try 2 Strangleroot Geist and 3 Mire Boas for early game beats while building Devotion.
Hey! Since everyone is talking about PRIMALCRUX. I don't know if anyone plays EDH or Commander but if you build around Primalcrux as a Jamie Wakefield finisher, the Devotion build might be better teched out. Keep Primalcrux alive along with some devotion dorks or mana dorks then pick off opponent's blockers or let him try an almost alpha strike tapped out before attacking back with Mirrorweave on a resolved Primalcrux. With a Xenagos in play, the results are hilarious. I've done 73 plus damage to the noggin off casual playtesting and the goal is just to stay alive until a Primalcrux can swing for lethal on its own, or you can lure a spot removal onto the monster and Mirrorweave before Path to exile resolves, making every creature on board a Primalcrux.
Think of Mirrorweave as your genesis wave or Craterhoof spell then if the opponent has bigger beats, you can turn your own devotion dorks into Eldrazi as well.
Can anyone post any latest Primalcrux plus Aspect of Hydra build? Going aggro-control with Prowling Serpopard might make the big doofus easier to cast and even if one has to veer away and add actual land ramp spells instead of mana dorks to get to 6 green. Tokens and Mirrorweave can absolutely destroy opposing decks. Putting at least one Beast Within maindeck has worked wonders too for clock decks that put in a big creature to race you.
Hey dude. Welcome to the club of getting abused by non-tournament playing Devotion dudes. BTW, you are right. I play a different devotion build simply because the BTE with Arbor Elf and Utopia vow version gets Two-Zeroed by any deck with heavy spot removal and land D via Ghost Quarter or spreading seas. ANy one on this thread who says otherwise is in denial.
The last guy who regularly makes a good placing here is the Summoning Pact player who goes all out for the mechanics of big mana explosive win cons and ran a playset of the Monstrosity creature that has reach.
Spot removal heavy decks wipe us out and in any tournament situation, the deck really is easy to play against.
I'm thinking of using Reaper King as a nuke-all toolbox with the requisite Devotion build since RK is a vindicate anything once Arcane Adaptation is in play. You can even change the loop with the second Adaptation you play being called for Allies for the infinite Wolves. RK is 9 CmC.
My deck is built on Defender Mana ramping as a secondary mana flood device if Nykthos is negated and is more reliable than Utopia Vow and Arbor Elf and Nykthos by themselves. There are non creature devotion sources too like using Privileged Position maindeck to protect the entire board.
My finishers are Terrastodon, Primeval Titan, or making a Primalcrux stick it up their nose. The deck is rather slow and isn't as explosive as BTE is against permission decks but the resilience should tide it out.
The infinite combo Turntimber Ranger build, I will test by next weekend in a local tourney. This Primalcrux build has almost won me two games had I not screwed with crucial plays like going for the kill before they played the Miracle Hallowed Burial.
Getting greedy as a Timmy player kinda bites back. But this build is more resilient against Skred and goblin hatching decks.
Hello fellow Green mana flood fans. Long time no write.
Joined one recent tournament and got fragged. Played against Skred thrice. One odd poison deck where I mulliganed to crap opening cards in two games. Decklist is all my fault for not smoothing out the curve better, so three spot removals basically delays my entire curve. Lost two matches that could have been won if I wasn't too greedy going all out on the mana flood, knowing the enemy had counters (mana leak).
Anyway, I got a new idea that you guys might find a bit interesting.
Kiora's ultimate is the goal. Since the local meta here is aggro and spot removal heavy decks like Skred or Dirty Red, I'm building a wall heavy deck to weather the initial beatdown then play Plaguemaw Beast and some token generator like Nissa Voice of Zendikar. Then pump Kiora's counters to ultimate as soon as can be managed so that the next cheap CMC Wall I cast still results in 3 x 8 Octopus fighting the opponent.
What do you guys think of Contagion Engine as an overcosted Walking Ballista that shrinks your opponents weenie horde to nil? And pumps Kiora to ultimate too.
Think over the dedicated Proliferate Build. Maybe an Aid form the Cowl and one of those Elemental enchantments that act like a survival of the fittest--just one to cast.
But I am running the older Green-White ramp to Sphere of Safety plus Sigil of the Empty Throne win con.
Does running four of Crumble to Dust help with Tron or at least running Fertile Ground help the deck out race Tron and lock it out?
The original theme of Devotion Green was to play a board of enough green permanents to flood mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for enough mana for a Craterhoof Behemoth or activating Garruk Wildspeaker's ultimate for lethal "Overrun" on a stick.
The other win con was to lock an opponent out with Primal Command and Eternal Witness, keeping him drawing a land, while you built a devotion weenie board slowly then tutoring for Hoofdaddy to win.
The Mirrorweave and Primalcrux wincon Devotion build only works if you have more creatures ready to attack for lethal when everything becomes a Primalcrux.
And you actually need to have six green ready by the turn 3 via Overgrown Battlement scaling with other walls plus a Wistful Selkie in play or white/blue mana from your lands for the Mirrorweave casting by turn 4 or later.
Alex recommends a board build up for a turn 6 win con after having Devotion online with a Nykthos activation. The Primalcrux can actually get the job done better if a 6 turn clock is your win con. It doesn't have to be able to attack on its own to win. You just have to be able to cast Mirrorweave on the same turn that Primalcrux played, or cast it the next turn and have Primalcrux attack too. A singleton Fungal Sprouting allows for the board to fill up with extra Primalcrux copies and it buys you time if you don't draw Mirrorweave already.
The full playset of Wistful Selkies enables you to Nukthos devotion mana float for blue.
Mirrorweave can also be used to copy the opponents' fatty creatures like nonlegendary Eldrazi or Primeval Titans or Wurmcoil Engines which makes it a smarter choice than a Garruk Wildspeaker overrun.
An unseemly choice for Devotion big beats is the Khalni Hydra. With 4 green creatures in play, you can cast an 8/8 trampling hydra for only 4 green, and that goes down with more green creatures. It also enables devotion for 8 plus whatever green you already have in play. Unfortunately, it's a dead card in your hand once the opponent sweeps your board and you can't hard cast it. Using mana walls allows you to drop one quickly though and given the choice for dropping a *****ty tireless tracker or the ranger for a devotion vanilla creature, you can drop an 8/8 trample that the opponents must kill, or it wins the game in a few swings. Killing the Khalni allows your other fatties, the Primalcrux to hit play with the opponent expending his hand of creature kill so you force the opponent to play defensively and then you drop the Primalcrux bomb then Mirrorweave so your Walls and BTE become Primalcruxen.
Use 4 X Fertile Ground instead of Utopia Sprawl because it can be make your lands produce any color over naming the kind of color Utopia Sprawl will make. In this build you can also insert a singleton Trostani Selesnya's Voice and build a 2 x Genesis Wave deck, when the wave resolves and you order your stack, have Trostani resolve first then ETB effects of other creatures before the huge life gain from Primalcrux triggering Trostani's ability.
This deck only works off a build with Overgrown Battlement as a playset and 2 x or more Sylvan Caryatid such that with two creatures and three lands, you can actually hardcast a Primalcux by turn 3 on your mana dork walls instead of getting them in via Genesis Wave. Also required is at least one Karametra's Acolyte in case you don't draw your Nykthos land.
The Build is advantageous because it works off Jamie Wakefield's original advice for any kind of mono green deck:
By itself Primalcrux is so rude with Khalni Hydra as the first thing you plop down then hit the Genesis Wave. WIth both Primalcux and Khalni in play, you are assured of an alpha strike win con without Mirrorweave or Genesis Wave.
Unlike the first iterations of Genesis Wave, you need several creaures to pump for a good spread, but for one Khalni Hydra resolved, you get the same or better explosive effect for activating a bigger Genesis Wave.
4 Arbor Elf
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Overgrown Battlement
2 Carven Caryatid
2 Prowling Serpopard
2 Greenweaver Druid
1 Polukranos World Eater
1 Trostani's Selesnya's Voice
1 Hornet Queen
1 Ruric Thar the Unbowed
4 Primalcrux
2 Khalni Hydra
Enchantment: 4
4 Fertile Ground
1 Overgrowth
2 Fungal Sprouting
2 Mirrorweave
Lands: 20
4 Nykthos Shrine to Nyx
10 Forests
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Stomping Ground
3 Temple Garden
1 Sunpetal Grove
It might look too casual but the deck may test better too. The Rogue's Passage may also be much better than Kessig for Primalcrux
The card may be so underrated because players overlook the Chroma devotion CMC reduction when one has dorks in the battlefield. If you play Serpopard you get around anything getting countered and I play 2, thinking of going a full playset. When it sticks and you still have bombs like Primalcrux or Primeval Titan or Ruric Thar the Unbowed in hand, you can't lose.
I for one think the use of planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker slow down the deck and the only reason for using the Garruk untapper is to flood mana for a huge Walking Ballista, but otherwise, the 4th turn Garruk disallows a fattie for beatface.
Instead of building around Garruk, which is a dead board without creatures, it's just an overrun stick win con. Better to build off the concept and theme instituted by the legendary Jamie Wakefield.
If you play mono green, PLAY DISRUPTION--Primal Crommand or Plow Under or even a Terastodon as best bets, PLAY RAMP as dorks, devotion enablers, or land fetch, then PLAY a FATTIE to finish the game--which just means either Primalcrux, Primeval Titan, Khalni Hydra, or Deus of Calamity because these sync nicely with devotion.
Just using Nykthos as your mana flood enabler is a flawed design because Spreading Seas and Ghost Quarter or Crumble to Dust makes your entire deck useless. You can work around this with stuff like Summoning Trap, Wall dork mana, Elves tribal mana, or any other green centric strengths.
I'd like to see more Primalcrux centric win conditions like Mirrorweave and Prowling Serpopard to guarantee it hitting the board, or Aspect of Hydra, even Doubling Chant might make a nice creature doubler of what's already there for devotion flood mana.
We're playing mono G or at best hybrid Gruul or Simic. There must be a nice monster you can swing with and use the devotion mechanic to your advantage.
The only times he won was when he started FAST and the opponent had a slow hand. This is imperative for ANY modern deck. You cannot play a slow hand or the control player outplays you with a meta counter to your deck: heavy spot removal.
There was his game with a Genesis Wave twice over that didn't plop down a single FATTY even if he won the game, and this part of his deck is what disturbs me. You need a curve of FATTYs inside like Alex's Arbor Colossus.
In Jamie Wakefield style old school Secret Force mono green deck, when you plop down a FATTY it is supposed to be Game Over for the opponent.
This fascination for grindy decks that keep putting blocker-attackers into play is rather counterintuitive to a mono green deck and it may be the reason why the deck is rather inconsistent. The mana Wall build is understandable because it scales a mana flood with just three Walls into play with either just one Overgrown Battlement,or a Axebane Guardian and any two Walls. Even with no Nykthos in play. That is your sleight of hand mana ramp schtick: mana Walls into Primalcrux then a possible Mirrorweave for the sick Overrun alternative with all your dorks turning into Primalcrux.
Over time playing the deck, I've noticed that if you build board position, you must have something to punch through such as a Fatty by turn 4 to force them to tap out for spot removal, then pump your remaining devotion dorks that attack with Aspect of Hydra. Opponents can always run three spot removals in a row by midgame from their goldfishing for hand or board control, which is what defeats the original playstyle of putting in weak devotion dorks.
Using any kind of sticky dudes inside to keep something active for the mana flood when it comes may not be as good as having a mana alternative or ramp alternative, but this is just me thinking of trade offs between Kitchen Finks and going with Overgrown Battlement.
Playing without Utopia Sprawl may actually hurdle the deck's inherent weakness to Ghost Quarter, Spreading Seas and any other land d effect.
That being discussed, Mirrorweave is still a sideboard card if you play Primalcrux because if the opponent has untapped dorks, they become Primalcrux too. But this negates any of their abilities and they just become big fat and stupid green so you can still punch through with one green mana and an Aspect of Hydra. Playing without a playset of Planeswalkers might also be an option espcially if all the opponent has to do is to board wipe your creatures. Better that extra 2 Garruks become a Polukranos or a Chameleon Colossus or even an extra Ruric Thar the Unbowed.
Alex goes all in for his two Nykthos drops then bomb out with X mana. He has spike cards like Blood Moon and Abrade, so you have to consider that aspect of what kind of win condition you want. Disrupt an opponent's early game to ensue the more explosive mana flood of Devotion to grind out your win.
You have to deal with the opponent's set up in the first three to four turns. Whether you get an early Primal Command and Eternal Witness lock or you use Aspect of Hydra and hasty hits with Strangleroot Geist and Boggart Ram Gang against slower decks.
The Turntimber Ranger and Arcane Adaptation build is extremely vulnerable to handkill and spot removal. So if it is your only win con, it's a casual Modern win con that won't get you anywhere in Spike tournament environments. BUT. You can build a deck around this combo as secondary win condition, and you might include synergy cards like one Reaoer King, Summoning Trap, Xenagod and Genesis Hydra, and Temur Sabertooth. The goal for the combo is to let it through so you will need stuff like Prowling Serpopard to avoid countermagic when casting the 5cmc Ranger, and Summoning Trap to get a second Ranger inside the deck out if the first gets countered.
Building around the combo still involves getting devotion early and running early blockers. I tried to use Mirrorweave in the Ranger Build with Arcane Adaptation to use the Blue part to make my Sylvan Caryatids and Overgrown Battlements into Primalcrux and swing for 60 plus if the opponent does tap out. I also put in Urabrask and Privileged Position to protect the combo pieces once they were in play. As it stands the Adaptation with Ranger is way too slow for Valakut Scapeshift, Skred, Death Shadow, and even Jeskai Control or Jund and I played the deck once in a tournament environment and losing spectacularly.
If you can stall an opponent's board to set up the combo via a Genesis Wave situation with devotion at 7 to 8 maybe you can insert the pieces as playsets inside a traditional Genesis Wave deck and create overkill with Reaper King, naming the second Adaptation that hits the board as Scarecrows. But that's 9 cards inside a 39 card deck, so that means you need a 15 card devotion dork suite and 2 or 3 Genesis Wave plus Genesis Hydra and Xenagod as other options. The only way to win with the Adaptation-Ranger combo is to stall them out and hit the combo. I also used the crap card Leyline of Sanctity and used somebody's suggestion of Trostani Selesnya Voice for infinite life additional security and you get it into play during the first land drop but it is absolutely crap when top decked. It makes Primalcrux extra fat in the butt too if you run it. Prowling Serpopard is a must in the Adaptation-Ranger combo. You can put one or two Privileged Position too. So you see it is way too slow but it is grindy when you can last several land drops or actually use land ramp. My build worked off Mana Walls for fast ramp with Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian, with opponent baffled what the heck my deck was doing, but I always got overwhelmed by Goblins or a fat Tarmogoyf and spot removal or a Supreme Verdict clearing board. It is a fun build for casual Modern but absolutely horrendous against a Spike tournament environment.
Humans and Hatebear kill you outright. I've never used Walking Ballista yet but maybe that might turn the tide.
Enjoy your Devotion Builds guys. But whatever you use, know how the meta works. Early explosive turns wins it nicely, If you ever play slow hands, it's an autoloss. Need to have a one CMC and curve to 5 devotion by turn 3 or have 5 mana available by turn two, any slower than that turns games into what CurdBros and other guys here call grindout games, and spot removal and board wipe usually win it for them unless you have the Primal Command Witness build to recover board position.
The philosophy behind putting a fatty in play immediately like Arbor Colossus from Alex's list or Deus of Calamity as my preferred fatty is to force them to spend mana and lose their Path to Exile, help us get more land ramp in, and to pave the way for the Primalcrux to hit the board. If they tap out early, the Aspect of Hydra pumps for almost lethal with only 5 or 6 life remaining.
Although given there are Snapcaster Mage's in any White splash decks, playing with Prowling Serpopard guarantees bigger early hits, forces them to cuse up their Lightning Bolts instead of waiting for lethal range to close out.
This build may not necessarily be a pure BIG STOMPY deck with Nykthos as an additional pump.
But you can't ignore Aspect of Hydra's potential to make the window for the opponent to survive shorter.
They get shocked that even if they kill your fatty, or wait it out because of summoning sickness, an unblocked dork like a Serpopard will net up to 11 damage or more in one swing.
Given minus 1 from fetch and minus 2 from Shocklands, that means they get below 10 so fast, they start to throw everything at your small guys or save them for your next fatty, in any case, if they kill a Strangleroot Geist, he comes back and you let them expend a spot removal spell while using up mana, and you put down another fatty, whether that be Primalcrux or Primeval Titan.
I'm looking at Devotion Modern Green now as counting down before they get card advantage for disrupting your hand or board, then taking over with their Celestial Colonnade or blue creature, or you forcing the issue by making countermagic dead cards, and forcing opponents to cast spot removals and lose card advantage, an early game Aspect of Hydra is always the BIG PLAY in this scenario, followed by big daddy after big daddy.
If you do manage to add any more stuff, try counting the play by play of your builds. As Aggro Jamie Wakefield aka Secret Force, but casting a Fatty, we can tweak for See the Unwritten or Summoning Trap, or put in one or two Privileged Position to make the Aspect Pump so difficult to recover from.
The goal again is to set up board with one or two devotion dorks that include Prowling Serpopard so that your next fatty gets down clean and you can cast an Aspect of hydra on any unblcoked attacker to push their life down to two swings.
If this is the best way to build on BIG STOMPY with some options for pulling out stuff like Ruric Thar the Unbowed, to make any spot removal game over, as the second or third fatty via Primal Command or any creature tutor. The kill against any control deck may be faster too this way. instead of overloading on blockers, as is the usual route of devotion green, blocker devotion creeps into Craterhoof or Garruk Overrun--both o which is inherently a weaker strategy because the opponent will just disrupt your hand to limit the devotion curve or blow up your board. A third turn fatty protected by Prowling Serpopard is serious clock for anyone to build around.
The other rouite is multiple BTE into Craterhoof, or Garruk is already built in for the listed Primalcrux build, You just have to play it a certain way. And swing at once for the Serpopard if you can make a Deus of Calamity stick. The ETB snootiness of Devotion builds may be overrated, like Acidic Slime or any other 5 CMC creature, the slot is really best served by Deus just for the imminent threat of overwhelming plus the sweet clock reduction via Aspect of Hydra. You don't play Aspect for defense either, you go to the head if an unblocked creature punches through to make it tougher on them to defend or to mana fix with shock lands or fetches.
Having a 5 CMC Devotion creature that is difficult to kill aside from Path to Exile or dedicated black burn spells is highly underrated and I know the long timers on the board have different playstyles thinking a more resilient build with smaller devotion is preferable because of the Craterhoof alpha strike.
Deus sets up Primalcrux, and if you are lucky enough for a sweet devotion presence with other devotion dorks, you get lethal via any topdeck Aspect of Hydra or one already in hand..
Think about it guys. Arbor Elf into BTE then Prowling Serpopard, sets up Deus of Calamity then Primalcrux or Primeval Titan or even Craterhoof Behemoth. All the while, you can have 3 or so Aspects of Hydra in the deck.
Prowling Serpopard was a bomb in the match-up. Even if the opponent nuked it with Path or Lightning Bolt, staying on the board with at least 5 to 6 devotion and at least one swing from it in a race turned into a clock the opponents coult not race. You need Aspect of Hydra to win of course. You can now maindeck Deus of Calamity for better devotion and the damn thing will stick with one Serpopard in play. Countermagic is a little *****ty if you play with a full set of Serpopard plus one Gaea's Revenge upon sideboarding, but Serpopard swings hard early game that one unchecked swing with Aspect of Hydra makes it a one turn game.
I've found out that in those games when the opponent does Spreading Seas on your Nykthos, the only reason for playing Aspect of Hydra is to have your dumb weenie horde still be of any value with at least one unblocked creature and the pump spell in hand.
Using the Primalcrux build and not having any Planeswalkers is okay as long as you can plop down fatties by turn 3 or 4 and keep them coming. A good board that sneaks in even just one attacker, pumped by Aspect of Hydra gets them down to 5, this with Prowling Serpopard as the first swing and the opponent trusting they can outrace your damage output because they have spot removal. Replacing the explore creature, you can actually get a ramp elf that fetches a basic land, that's 3 to cast and it thins out the deck of one Forest and keeps you a body blocker in the battlefield. Ywo land fetch elves are my picks plus two to three Prowling Serpopards as early beats that set up a Primalcrux or a Deus of Calamity that cannot be countered. Those fatties don't have to last until next turn, you swing at them with an open Serpopard and if they don't block the Devotion pump from the fattie via ASpect of Hydra is lethal.
Aspect of Hydra makes a nuked Nukthos in your battlefield irrelevant, as the opponent expends mana for spreading seas but opens itself up to a swing and a free Aspect of Hydra pump for devotion almost lethal if not lethal.
Since our most vulberable opponent has Fatal Push and discard, running 3 or 4 Mire Boa's main can punish them early if we keep that one green mana untapped when we attack each turn. It also forces them to play two spot removals unless it's a Path.
Everybody has probably had the worst match with heavy discard Jund or GDS.
I'll try 2 Strangleroot Geist and 3 Mire Boas for early game beats while building Devotion.
Think of Mirrorweave as your genesis wave or Craterhoof spell then if the opponent has bigger beats, you can turn your own devotion dorks into Eldrazi as well.
Hey dude. Welcome to the club of getting abused by non-tournament playing Devotion dudes. BTW, you are right. I play a different devotion build simply because the BTE with Arbor Elf and Utopia vow version gets Two-Zeroed by any deck with heavy spot removal and land D via Ghost Quarter or spreading seas. ANy one on this thread who says otherwise is in denial.
The last guy who regularly makes a good placing here is the Summoning Pact player who goes all out for the mechanics of big mana explosive win cons and ran a playset of the Monstrosity creature that has reach.
Spot removal heavy decks wipe us out and in any tournament situation, the deck really is easy to play against.
Having said that, there are ways to sneak in a win condition like Arcane Adaptation and Turntimber Ranger built in.
I'm thinking of using Reaper King as a nuke-all toolbox with the requisite Devotion build since RK is a vindicate anything once Arcane Adaptation is in play. You can even change the loop with the second Adaptation you play being called for Allies for the infinite Wolves. RK is 9 CmC.
My deck is built on Defender Mana ramping as a secondary mana flood device if Nykthos is negated and is more reliable than Utopia Vow and Arbor Elf and Nykthos by themselves. There are non creature devotion sources too like using Privileged Position maindeck to protect the entire board.
My finishers are Terrastodon, Primeval Titan, or making a Primalcrux stick it up their nose. The deck is rather slow and isn't as explosive as BTE is against permission decks but the resilience should tide it out.
2x Wall of Roots
2x Carven Caryatid
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x eternal witness
2x Genesis Hydra
1x Polukranos, World Eater
1x Xenagos, God of Revels
1x Primeval Titan
4x Primalcrux
1x ruric thar, the unbowed
1x Terrastodon
2x Primal Command
3x Oath of Nissa
1x Nissa, Steward of Elements
4x Kiora, Master of the Depths
Land
13x Forest
2x Stomping Ground
1x Hinterland Harbor
4x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Kessig Wolf Run
The infinite combo Turntimber Ranger build, I will test by next weekend in a local tourney. This Primalcrux build has almost won me two games had I not screwed with crucial plays like going for the kill before they played the Miracle Hallowed Burial.
Getting greedy as a Timmy player kinda bites back. But this build is more resilient against Skred and goblin hatching decks.
Joined one recent tournament and got fragged. Played against Skred thrice. One odd poison deck where I mulliganed to crap opening cards in two games. Decklist is all my fault for not smoothing out the curve better, so three spot removals basically delays my entire curve. Lost two matches that could have been won if I wasn't too greedy going all out on the mana flood, knowing the enemy had counters (mana leak).
Anyway, I got a new idea that you guys might find a bit interesting.
Kiora's ultimate is the goal. Since the local meta here is aggro and spot removal heavy decks like Skred or Dirty Red, I'm building a wall heavy deck to weather the initial beatdown then play Plaguemaw Beast and some token generator like Nissa Voice of Zendikar. Then pump Kiora's counters to ultimate as soon as can be managed so that the next cheap CMC Wall I cast still results in 3 x 8 Octopus fighting the opponent.
What do you guys think of Contagion Engine as an overcosted Walking Ballista that shrinks your opponents weenie horde to nil? And pumps Kiora to ultimate too.
The deck might work off 4 x Plaguemaw Beasts plus 1 or 2 Contagion Engines plus 2 x Wolfbriar Elemental and other token generating stuff. If for anything, you can still sac an Overgrown Battlement or Sylvan Caryatid to put the loyalty counter count to 8. The deck may require protection from red cheese but that might be easy enough with Privileged Position and Leyline of Sanctity.
Think over the dedicated Proliferate Build. Maybe an Aid form the Cowl and one of those Elemental enchantments that act like a survival of the fittest--just one to cast.