I remain of the perspective that there is a Devotion core, and it consists of Sprawl, Elf, Garruk WS, and Nykthos. Beyond this, there is a lot of flexibility, but these cards are essential to the deck's play pattern as they allow both reliable first turn ramp, a potential overabundance of mana as soon as turn 3, and an additional finisher from an Overrun effect. Decks that do not leverage all of these cards in tandem will play very differently and, I'd argue, should have their own thread. I've felt that way about the CoCo and TnN lists for a while: they're great, but they operate so differently that they really shouldn't be discussed in the same place.
I was outvoted, as I recall, because people wanted to be maximally inclusive of related green big mana discussions in a single place. That's fine too. There's no real harm done, as the community around green big mana decks is not big enough (ie: post volume is low enough) that most people aren't getting tripped up by discussing all these different decks in the same place.
But when I talk about a Green Devotion deck, you can bet it will include all four of those cards, and probably fifteen or sixteen total copies in all.
My tooth and nail list still runs 15 of those 16. They are just good cards.
As a community project, doing a series of posts about the current core and support cards would be nice (kinda like the primer but updated w/current lists)
@ edo6288
I have played a lot of sideboard blood moons, and have found them to be quite good. Funny story, I recently went to an FNM and decided on a whim to not bring the moons, to see what happens. Was promptly paired against Tron and humans. Moons are going back in the board.
I have not had too many chances to test this yet, but it seems fun. Woodland Bellower can fill the grave with wayfinder, grab something back with ewit, or just present another threat with flayer. Also using Garruk and Nykthos to chain Bellower>Ewit>Command/Traverse>Emrakul seems good.
What a cool list! I love Woodland Bellower and find Faithless Looting super interesting. I'd love to hear how your testing goes.
I remain of the perspective that there is a Devotion core, and it consists of Sprawl, Elf, Garruk WS, and Nykthos. Beyond this, there is a lot of flexibility, but these cards are essential to the deck's play pattern as they allow both reliable first turn ramp, a potential overabundance of mana as soon as turn 3, and an additional finisher from an Overrun effect. Decks that do not leverage all of these cards in tandem will play very differently and, I'd argue, should have their own thread. I've felt that way about the CoCo and TnN lists for a while: they're great, but they operate so differently that they really shouldn't be discussed in the same place.
I was outvoted, as I recall, because people wanted to be maximally inclusive of related green big mana discussions in a single place. That's fine too. There's no real harm done, as the community around green big mana decks is not big enough (ie: post volume is low enough) that most people aren't getting tripped up by discussing all these different decks in the same place.
But when I talk about a Green Devotion deck, you can bet it will include all four of those cards, and probably fifteen or sixteen total copies in all.
I'd say Devotion has too many variants to have a single "core" list beyond: 4 Arbor Elf
2-4 Birds of Paradise
4 Utopia Sprawl
3-4 Nykthos
1 Kessig Wolf Run
There are Planeswalker heavy lists that run low creature count, Collected Company lists that run high creature count and no Planeswalkers, Pact lists that focus on fast explosive games, and Command lists that try to grind out value in a longer game. You're not gonna get 50 cards that match among them.
And then separately from those are the Tooth and Nail lists which have a different gameplan.
Lastly, there's a lot of experimentation going on in this thread with people trying different colors and focuses, either for fun, or to see how competitive they can be (or both) so some recently posted lists are not well tested against a wide meta.
I would suggest proxying a couple different variations if you have some friends to test against and see which you like best. I built a Command-style version but am slowly piecing together the other parts to change it up if I want to.
I agree with this. I think the "Core" of Devotion involves
I would also "suggest" that for curve/playability purposes that most devotion decks will also normally require:
1. at least 2x another mana dork (Birds of Paradise, NO8ble Hierarh, Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elvest, etc.) I personally prefer no less than 3 copies.
2. likely 4-8x 3CMC cards (Eternal Witness, Courser of Kruphix, Wistful Selkie, Knight of the Reliquary, etc.)
The remainder of the deck will generallyx be win-conditions, interaction, and/or engines. It also is highly dependent on whether you play Devotion as a "Combo" deck or an "Aggro/Toolbox" decks. The reason for this is due to how Devotion decks play in reality. In a majority of games, you are going to want to cast a 3-4 CMC card on turn 2. Thiss allows
** CoCo Lists **
I do realize that some have removed Garruk Wildspeaker for a different 4-drop (as there needs to be a 4-drop available for "God Hands" where you can cast your 4-CMC card on turn 2). I don't mean to entirely discount them. I think they have their place as long as they don't begin to "bleed" into a "general" CoCo list (i.e. as long as Devotion remains an important component to the deck).
I was half-tempted to try out a deck with Experimental Frenzy recently (as my brother has been play8ing it and it has been a crazy powerful); but Bloodbraid Elf is likely just better in a red deck.
P.S. Primer up Wednesday. I won't have enough time until then to finish it.
P.S. made an Experimental Frenzy list...it is like a super Courser...once down, you essentially just “go off” and play/cast 5+ cards each turn. It’s really fun. Obviously I haven’t tested it enough to have a focused list that I could say is viable...but my lord is it a powerful card.
Edit: Maybe TopDeck manipulation is really a thing. Here's a Standard Dino Deck from Jim Davis with the Frenzy card https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE9yaG0fN54
maybe to play more Lands from the library could be important. Dryad Greenseeker or
At the moment i'm brewing about 2 spicy devotion decks.
This is pretty a weird one. It's a heavy modification from the old list from https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-about-nothing-forcemage-green-modern (Forcemage Green) . This Deck had a lot Problems. At first i changed the Namesake(Primal Forcemage) from the Deck and replace nearly it with Rhonas's Monument (damn legend rule). Ok, it got less Power, but a Artifact is harder to remove, it did just easier to cast creatures und give them trample to a creature and as a bonus to our choice. And the Ramp was in my opionion still to slow, so i changed to the best ramp cards in Modern.
Evolutionary Leap is in this deck the most important card. It's recycle the echo creature's into something different. Leap is something between card advantage (Strangleroot Geist) ,recycle and dodging wrath-/removals effects. We got tons of creature cast every round. (Sidenote: Utopia Sprawl isn't a target for leap, unless Bird or Hierach )
Life's Legacy to the right time it is a big card draw.
I hope i fixed the most problems from Forcemage Green deck into something more resistent and more consistent play. For sure it would be a very funny FridayNightMagic Day .
Edit: Did some Goldfish tests. Nykthos isn't good in this Deck
Most time, this deck wasn't a Devotion Deck. But i realized i must fast up the whole Deck (with ramp). And the pseudo Loop between Wittness, Collected Company and tons of copy cards is too funny, but need a lot Mana, too.
If you don't want to read the History , how i build this deck, skip this Textblock
Foe me, one of the greatest highlights was the Deck about CoCoClones from SafronOlive from the Goldfish site. I copy the Deck and brewed around with some cards.
I tried a lot for Plan B. A strong 3 Drop that is worth to copy multiple times that can win alone the Match Biovisionary
First choice was Timberpack Wolf, but if you copy mutiple it is still to weak and the effect is surprisingly rare. Tarmogoyf is always strong, but with a little bit graveyard hate or dicipline from the Opponent it could be not that big as i like. I'm really didn't fill my Graveyard that heavy and i don't want it. Ok, next One: Nulltread Gargantuan. The Drawback is hard, but it can "reset" my Copy creatures and is has pseudo haste with Renegade Doppelganger. A 5/6 is a Tarmogoyf only in a Midrange in a Jund deck - but still not woth the drawback. Nightveil Specter was fun, but not strong enough. A jump to the future: Ravnica again ! Thief of Sanity is so much better and can be a real horror for your opponent, as long he didn't had any fliers or a weird deck with nothing worth to copy.
With the blacksplash Pack rat is famous for copys . I'm still not sure, bescause to discard a card for 2B or copy it with Mirror Image for example, where the advantage is . Maybe with Training Grounds and Shapesharer...more "setup" . I need it simple.
At last, my final choice so far, Steel Leaf Champion! Undercost hard beater with Evasion . And it worked very well. I just beat a fast aggro Goblin Deck with it. With so much G Symbols i must add Nykthos in this Deck.
The Deck is a improvment of the original CoCoClones (link see above). Any Matchups with big creatures is a great Matchup, or we copy our own "fattie". And it is really fun to play with ton of surprisings, and every Matchup felt completly different.
Sideboard is still under big construction. But i think there are some cool ideas. Unmoored Ego for example kills most Combo Decks in a instant.
Biovisionary is a) your win-condition b) magnet for removals - both is pretty ok for me.
The Ramp is very clear . With some Exception. First it worked a bit later as usual and sometimes there are some shenanigans with your copy creatures. Renegade Doppelganger can be Arbor Elf and/or bit later something with more G Symbols that can be fine with Nykthos. Sometimes you must think a lot more to adding the Numbers you need.
The Copy creatures just doing a fine Job. Especially if you had great targets.
Thief of Sanity is fanatastic against every Deck that work with "Good Stuff" like Jund or UW Control
Steel Leaf Champion a little bit hard to cast, but a good beater, and he got good friends in a short amount of time . And great source for the devotion mechanic to finish the game.
As I played it I felt like there were two things it needed, filter and a short cut into titan and demon. To accomplish that I settled on liliana death's magesty and champion of wits. Reason for That is Rogue refiner spot needs to do more than simply cantrip. I tried wistful selkie and Carven Caryatid in its place for devotion in addition to cantripping. I felt like my games needed more draw because i was establishing 6 and 7 mana sources pretty consistently but nothing in hand to end the game with.
As I tested the champion of wits now I realized I have a means of putting the big threats into the graveyard in the early game. Also its not uncommong for titan to be killed. So how do we get titan, back well switching over to liliana, death's majesty made some sense as she can bring back dead demons and titans, which either short cuts or restores the beat down plan. the zombie generation while milling the deck has won me a few games as well.
***not sure why some of isn't making the card link.
Also I think the meta is right for mana ramp decks lot of people giving me free lands with assassin's trophy. Which makes it better to be in the devotion and valakut decks, since we use basics.
one last note about champion of wits she does enable a cumulation of excess ramp creatures for undergrowth, however I feel a lot of the new undergrowth cards might be rather under whelming. Im going to try her in more devotion lists, I find the eternalize to be a nice feature when the decks getting to those floundering points, we have all the ramp in the world but nothing to play, drawing 4 cards keeping 2 refuels the tank well!.
Sorry I didn’t respond earlier. We’ve had some baby/medical stuff we’ve been dealing with the last few days. Will be back up and running tomorrow with data and primer.
did some more testing tonight and was getting about 50% win rate. 3/2 against the new pelt collector zoo. when 2/2 with collected company aggro. would of been 3/1 but one game the guy spell pierces my primal surge. he splashed blue for some surprise counter mage apparently. (He goes infinite combo with the devoted druid and vizier, what ever you call that deck.)
I felt like the zoo match ups really came down to either getting an early courser of kruphix going, or hitting turn 5 thragtusk, or liliana reanimating titan/demon.
whether its burn or zoo, what might the favored sideboard choices be?
Yay! Primer is gonna be up tonight. Had to remove a few minor stuff (more for looks than anything) to get the formatting right; but it at minimum will be up so we can add to it later.
Played an Anthony Skrzypczak devotion deck for a couple outings. Wasn't bad and won a couple matches each time. But burning tree emissary and oath of nissa have been terrible. https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=18090&d=312273&f=MO
By the way, I think the arbor colossus is a typo, supposed to be arbor elf.
Knight of Autumn is okay, I don't see the first mode being used much. I guess it's better than reclamation sage.
Blood moon has been great out of the sideboard. It's been great against jund. I think it would be okay against tron too, I think our clock is fast enough to capitalize on it.
Oath of nissa has always been great for me, 1 devotion land that can sometimes turn into something good. Burning tree is the cornerstone of the deck, if you dont like it you're probably not playing it right. Dont bring in blood moon against jund, only bad jund players lose to it.
(Most players think I'm playing ponza on the first turn, and its common to then think about blood moon on game two, if they play around it it's not good in the matchup. I've had them leave it in my hand and fetch basics, feels bad.)
My jund board is 3 ballista, 1 rip (used to be two relic), and two leyline of sanctity. Leyline is to protect the hand from discard and to do damage control against liliana by stopping her minus. Leyline is really boarderline here, I prefer two obstinate baloth for the same role, but the burn matchup is worse if you dont have leyline in the board.
I take out craterhoof, 2-3 pact, scavenging ooze and acidic slime. Ruric thar if I need another card.
Nissa: I chose to play 2 5cmc walkers in my flex slots over 1 eternal witness and 1 primal command, in order to combat the rise of grindy decks like uw, jeskai and jund, and it worked fantastically. Enough so that the choke felt slightly gratuitous in the board, I felt 50/50 or better against u/w where before I was certainly not favored, around 45 for me. I might play a second worship over the choke in the board, but that requires more testing against uw first. I chose 1 of each walker because of the legend rule, I am thinking 2 nissa if I cut the choke, since nissa is better against uw and big garruk is better against jund. As soon as the meta shifts away from control I'll be going back to primal command.
I somehow dodged dredge and kci the entire tournament. No idea how that happened (played against dredgevine though, board worked great there). I like the white board a lot, worship is great against humans, spirits, dredge, burn. Another worship would mainly be for dredge and spirits.
Humans board:
out acidic slime, ruric thar, scavenging ooze, chameleon colossus, 5cmc nissa, 5cmc garruk, 3cmc nissa x1. Second nissa if I have a second worship to bring in.
In 3 ballista, 3 blood moon, 1 worship
In practice, my humans record is absurdly high, something like 70% win rate at competitive rel. Partially because they have a tendency to blindly name bonfire with meddling mage. I dont think my sample size is big enough to really say anything about the matchup yet, only like 10 real matches do far. Playtesting has it lower.
This was really useful stuff. I notice that your opinion on the white cards has basically done a total 180 versus a few months ago. I'm glad it works, and might adopt it.
The PWs threw me a bit, but what you're doing there makes good sense. I had a Garruk Relentless where you had been running Command since I feel the latter is too slow right now (though I do conceptually love the card). I think the Nissa VF is a very strong choice (I'm a fan of Koth elsewhere, and this hits a lot of the same beats), and am not sure it will pay to return to Witness even if control's dominance recedes.
I was outvoted, as I recall, because people wanted to be maximally inclusive of related green big mana discussions in a single place. That's fine too. There's no real harm done, as the community around green big mana decks is not big enough (ie: post volume is low enough) that most people aren't getting tripped up by discussing all these different decks in the same place.
But when I talk about a Green Devotion deck, you can bet it will include all four of those cards, and probably fifteen or sixteen total copies in all.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
As a community project, doing a series of posts about the current core and support cards would be nice (kinda like the primer but updated w/current lists)
What a cool list! I love Woodland Bellower and find Faithless Looting super interesting. I'd love to hear how your testing goes.
I agree with this. I think the "Core" of Devotion involves
4x Arbor Elf
4x Utopia Sprawl
3-4x Garruk Wildspeaker
3-4X Nykthos
Granted, this is only 15-16 cards
I would also "suggest" that for curve/playability purposes that most devotion decks will also normally require:
1. at least 2x another mana dork (Birds of Paradise, NO8ble Hierarh, Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elvest, etc.) I personally prefer no less than 3 copies.
2. likely 4-8x 3CMC cards (Eternal Witness, Courser of Kruphix, Wistful Selkie, Knight of the Reliquary, etc.)
The remainder of the deck will generallyx be win-conditions, interaction, and/or engines. It also is highly dependent on whether you play Devotion as a "Combo" deck or an "Aggro/Toolbox" decks. The reason for this is due to how Devotion decks play in reality. In a majority of games, you are going to want to cast a 3-4 CMC card on turn 2. Thiss allows
** CoCo Lists **
I do realize that some have removed Garruk Wildspeaker for a different 4-drop (as there needs to be a 4-drop available for "God Hands" where you can cast your 4-CMC card on turn 2). I don't mean to entirely discount them. I think they have their place as long as they don't begin to "bleed" into a "general" CoCo list (i.e. as long as Devotion remains an important component to the deck).
Result: 3-1
Jeskai Control (0-2)
Game 1 - Mulligan 4.
Game 2 - Mulligan 5, never saw a 3 land.
Humans (2-0)
Game 1 - 2 Commands bought me enough time to Hornet Queen and then Craterhoof.
Game 2 - Removals + Coommand + Queen.
Grixis Death's Shadow (2-0)
Game 1 - No discards, really fast ramp into Craterhoof.
Game 2 - 2 Blood Moons and 2 Utopias in hand, so turn 2 Moon, gg.
Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1 - Mulligan 5, counters and more counters.
Game 2 - Turn 2 Moon.
Game 3 - We traded resources until Thrun wins the game.
The list is very good, no changes in mind.
6 Forest
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Stomping Ground
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Windswept Heath
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Courser of Kruphix
4 Arbor Elf
1 Acidic Slime
1 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Tireless Tracker
3 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
2 Primeval Titan
1 Hornet Queen
1 Nossa, Voice of Zendikar
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Abrade
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Bonfire of the Damned
3 Blood Moon
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Trinisphere
_______
You know what I’d Love to see them print:
Nylea Visionary GG
Creature - Druid
When Nylea Visionary enters the battfield, draw a card.
1/2
Could be an Enchantment Creature as well if in Theros...I just would love another Visionary Effect especially at 2-Devotion.
I’d be happy (not as happy) with a Wall of Blossoms reprint...of course I’d be really happy reprint of Wild Growth...I’m not picky
______
I was half-tempted to try out a deck with Experimental Frenzy recently (as my brother has been play8ing it and it has been a crazy powerful); but Bloodbraid Elf is likely just better in a red deck.
P.S. Primer up Wednesday. I won't have enough time until then to finish it.
Have a TON of stuff to provide!
P.S. made an Experimental Frenzy list...it is like a super Courser...once down, you essentially just “go off” and play/cast 5+ cards each turn. It’s really fun. Obviously I haven’t tested it enough to have a focused list that I could say is viable...but my lord is it a powerful card.
Courser of Kruphix
...and Vizier of the Menagerie
"Play the Library" Devotion?
Edit: Maybe TopDeck manipulation is really a thing. Here's a Standard Dino Deck from Jim Davis with the Frenzy card
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE9yaG0fN54
maybe to play more Lands from the library could be important.
Dryad Greenseeker or
At the moment i'm brewing about 2 spicy devotion decks.
14 Forest
2 Hashep Oasis
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
//Spells
2 Eldritch Evolution
4 Evolutionary Leap
2 Life's Legacy
3 Rhonas's Monument
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Groundbreaker
1 Giant Solifuge
2 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Primal Forcemage
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Timbermare
4 Uktabi Drake
1 Carnage Tyrant
4 Fog
3 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
This is pretty a weird one. It's a heavy modification from the old list from https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-about-nothing-forcemage-green-modern (Forcemage Green) . This Deck had a lot Problems. At first i changed the Namesake(Primal Forcemage) from the Deck and replace nearly it with Rhonas's Monument (damn legend rule). Ok, it got less Power, but a Artifact is harder to remove, it did just easier to cast creatures und give them trample to a creature and as a bonus to our choice. And the Ramp was in my opionion still to slow, so i changed to the best ramp cards in Modern.
Evolutionary Leap is in this deck the most important card. It's recycle the echo creature's into something different. Leap is something between card advantage (Strangleroot Geist) ,recycle and dodging wrath-/removals effects. We got tons of creature cast every round. (Sidenote: Utopia Sprawl isn't a target for leap, unless Bird or Hierach )
Eldritch Evolution mostly into Groundbreaker to finsih off the Opponent or the Timbermare
Life's Legacy to the right time it is a big card draw.
I hope i fixed the most problems from Forcemage Green deck into something more resistent and more consistent play. For sure it would be a very funny FridayNightMagic Day .
Edit: Did some Goldfish tests. Nykthos isn't good in this Deck
4 Biovisionary
4 Breeding Pool
4 Collected Company
2 Cryptoplasm
4 Eternal Witness
1 Flooded Grove
5 Forest
1 Island
3 Mirror Image
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Polluted Delta
4 Renegade Doppelganger
4 Steel Leaf Champion
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
2 Clever Impersonator
1 Dispel
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Krosan Grip
1 Primal Command
4 Thief of Sanity
1 Unified Will
2 Unmoored Ego
Most time, this deck wasn't a Devotion Deck. But i realized i must fast up the whole Deck (with ramp). And the pseudo Loop between Wittness, Collected Company and tons of copy cards is too funny, but need a lot Mana, too.
If you don't want to read the History , how i build this deck, skip this Textblock
Foe me, one of the greatest highlights was the Deck about CoCoClones from SafronOlive from the Goldfish site. I copy the Deck and brewed around with some cards.
I tried a lot for Plan B. A strong 3 Drop that is worth to copy multiple times that can win alone the Match Biovisionary
First choice was Timberpack Wolf, but if you copy mutiple it is still to weak and the effect is surprisingly rare.
Tarmogoyf is always strong, but with a little bit graveyard hate or dicipline from the Opponent it could be not that big as i like. I'm really didn't fill my Graveyard that heavy and i don't want it. Ok, next One: Nulltread Gargantuan. The Drawback is hard, but it can "reset" my Copy creatures and is has pseudo haste with Renegade Doppelganger. A 5/6 is a Tarmogoyf only in a Midrange in a Jund deck - but still not woth the drawback. Nightveil Specter was fun, but not strong enough. A jump to the future: Ravnica again ! Thief of Sanity is so much better and can be a real horror for your opponent, as long he didn't had any fliers or a weird deck with nothing worth to copy.
With the blacksplash Pack rat is famous for copys . I'm still not sure, bescause to discard a card for 2B or copy it with Mirror Image for example, where the advantage is . Maybe with Training Grounds and Shapesharer...more "setup" . I need it simple.
At last, my final choice so far, Steel Leaf Champion! Undercost hard beater with Evasion . And it worked very well. I just beat a fast aggro Goblin Deck with it. With so much G Symbols i must add Nykthos in this Deck.
The Deck is a improvment of the original CoCoClones (link see above). Any Matchups with big creatures is a great Matchup, or we copy our own "fattie". And it is really fun to play with ton of surprisings, and every Matchup felt completly different.
Sideboard is still under big construction. But i think there are some cool ideas. Unmoored Ego for example kills most Combo Decks in a instant.
Biovisionary is a) your win-condition b) magnet for removals - both is pretty ok for me.
The Ramp is very clear . With some Exception. First it worked a bit later as usual and sometimes there are some shenanigans with your copy creatures.
Renegade Doppelganger can be Arbor Elf and/or bit later something with more G Symbols that can be fine with Nykthos. Sometimes you must think a lot more to adding the Numbers you need.
The Copy creatures just doing a fine Job. Especially if you had great targets.
Thief of Sanity is fanatastic against every Deck that work with "Good Stuff" like Jund or UW Control
Steel Leaf Champion a little bit hard to cast, but a good beater, and he got good friends in a short amount of time . And great source for the devotion mechanic to finish the game.
As I played it I felt like there were two things it needed, filter and a short cut into titan and demon. To accomplish that I settled on liliana death's magesty and champion of wits. Reason for That is Rogue refiner spot needs to do more than simply cantrip. I tried wistful selkie and Carven Caryatid in its place for devotion in addition to cantripping. I felt like my games needed more draw because i was establishing 6 and 7 mana sources pretty consistently but nothing in hand to end the game with.
As I tested the champion of wits now I realized I have a means of putting the big threats into the graveyard in the early game. Also its not uncommong for titan to be killed. So how do we get titan, back well switching over to liliana, death's majesty made some sense as she can bring back dead demons and titans, which either short cuts or restores the beat down plan. the zombie generation while milling the deck has won me a few games as well.
3 liliana, death's majesty
4 champion of wits
4 Arbor Elf
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Thragtusk
4 Primeval Titan
1 Platinum Angel
4 Rune-Scarred Demon
4 Overgrowth
1 fertile ground
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 forest
***not sure why some of isn't making the card link.
Also I think the meta is right for mana ramp decks lot of people giving me free lands with assassin's trophy. Which makes it better to be in the devotion and valakut decks, since we use basics.
one last note about champion of wits she does enable a cumulation of excess ramp creatures for undergrowth, however I feel a lot of the new undergrowth cards might be rather under whelming. Im going to try her in more devotion lists, I find the eternalize to be a nice feature when the decks getting to those floundering points, we have all the ramp in the world but nothing to play, drawing 4 cards keeping 2 refuels the tank well!.
Sorry I didn’t respond earlier. We’ve had some baby/medical stuff we’ve been dealing with the last few days. Will be back up and running tomorrow with data and primer.
I felt like the zoo match ups really came down to either getting an early courser of kruphix going, or hitting turn 5 thragtusk, or liliana reanimating titan/demon.
whether its burn or zoo, what might the favored sideboard choices be?
Oath of nissa has always been great for me, 1 devotion land that can sometimes turn into something good. Burning tree is the cornerstone of the deck, if you dont like it you're probably not playing it right. Dont bring in blood moon against jund, only bad jund players lose to it.
(Most players think I'm playing ponza on the first turn, and its common to then think about blood moon on game two, if they play around it it's not good in the matchup. I've had them leave it in my hand and fetch basics, feels bad.)
My jund board is 3 ballista, 1 rip (used to be two relic), and two leyline of sanctity. Leyline is to protect the hand from discard and to do damage control against liliana by stopping her minus. Leyline is really boarderline here, I prefer two obstinate baloth for the same role, but the burn matchup is worse if you dont have leyline in the board.
I take out craterhoof, 2-3 pact, scavenging ooze and acidic slime. Ruric thar if I need another card.
How did Nissa, Vital Force work out?
GJ on bringing those RIP's with you when I look at that field full of dredge/KCI.
How does your sideboard plan against humans look like?
Nissa: I chose to play 2 5cmc walkers in my flex slots over 1 eternal witness and 1 primal command, in order to combat the rise of grindy decks like uw, jeskai and jund, and it worked fantastically. Enough so that the choke felt slightly gratuitous in the board, I felt 50/50 or better against u/w where before I was certainly not favored, around 45 for me. I might play a second worship over the choke in the board, but that requires more testing against uw first. I chose 1 of each walker because of the legend rule, I am thinking 2 nissa if I cut the choke, since nissa is better against uw and big garruk is better against jund. As soon as the meta shifts away from control I'll be going back to primal command.
I somehow dodged dredge and kci the entire tournament. No idea how that happened (played against dredgevine though, board worked great there). I like the white board a lot, worship is great against humans, spirits, dredge, burn. Another worship would mainly be for dredge and spirits.
Humans board:
out acidic slime, ruric thar, scavenging ooze, chameleon colossus, 5cmc nissa, 5cmc garruk, 3cmc nissa x1. Second nissa if I have a second worship to bring in.
In 3 ballista, 3 blood moon, 1 worship
In practice, my humans record is absurdly high, something like 70% win rate at competitive rel. Partially because they have a tendency to blindly name bonfire with meddling mage. I dont think my sample size is big enough to really say anything about the matchup yet, only like 10 real matches do far. Playtesting has it lower.
Congrats again man and good luck!
This was really useful stuff. I notice that your opinion on the white cards has basically done a total 180 versus a few months ago. I'm glad it works, and might adopt it.
The PWs threw me a bit, but what you're doing there makes good sense. I had a Garruk Relentless where you had been running Command since I feel the latter is too slow right now (though I do conceptually love the card). I think the Nissa VF is a very strong choice (I'm a fan of Koth elsewhere, and this hits a lot of the same beats), and am not sure it will pay to return to Witness even if control's dominance recedes.
Thanks for the insights.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB