Daily Digest: Heliod’s Revenge!

Someone finally did it! We’ve seen huge swaths of devotion of nearly every variety, but the Sun God has struggled from day one. Those days may be over. GerryT investigates!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of the Grand Prix Trials that took place Friday at Grand Prix Orlando was Standard. I was even more
pleasantly surprised to see what deck went 5-0 and ended up with two byes.

Behold, the deck you’ve all been waiting for — Mono-White Devotion!

Heliod has gotten a bad rap, but you can’t argue that once he gets going with Nykthos, Shrine to Nix, he’s tough to beat. The issue has always been what
white cards you play in order to fuel your devotion. Unsurprisingly, Khans of Tarkir, the recent gold set, didn’t provide much. However, Lee McIntire found
a shell that works for him featuring some cards not normally seen in Standard.

Nyx-Fleece Ram stems the early beats while midrange threats like Wingmate Roc stabilize you, and eventually start taking over. Archetype of Courage keeps
combat in your favor while Mass Calcify (!) provides the nail in the coffin. There are some other crazy cards in here, like High Sentinels of Arashin;
Avacyn, Guardian Angel; and Celestial Archon!

I’m sure this archetype (which happens to be full of courage) can be tuned even further. Is this it? Is it finally Heliod’s time to shine?