I wish I could tell you that I did awesome at Grand Prix Louisville with the same deck that Todd Anderson, Brad Nelson, and Brian Braun-Duin played.
Sadly, I can’t. All I can tell you is that I’m dumb and didn’t play BBD’s Big Black deck.
Last week I spent a decent amount of time working on the U/B Master of Waves idea from my last article. I wanted to try to take advantage of Ashiok in the Blue Devotion mirror and play Domestication in the main as a way to combat Nightveil Specter and Master of Waves. Sadly, it was bad. While Ashiok is the Weaver of Nightmares, it’s also the weaver of doing nothing a lot of the time.
Feeling down and out on my Ashiok idea, I wanted to try Makihito Mihara’s G/R Devotion deck. It looked very powerful and extremely fun to play, and after filming the Versus video last week and playing a bunch on Magic Online with the deck, I was hooked. You can do some very big things before your opponent even has a chance to react, and if they are able to do anything, our planeswalkers usually provide some amount of residual value that we can ride out until the next planeswalker to put the pressure back on.
Last week I kept BBD updated on how the G/R deck was doing, and he kept telling me that he was literally undefeated with the Mono-Black Devotion list that he made by changing a few cards around in Kentarou Yamamoto’s Pro Tour Theros Top 8 deck. I kept thinking, "Oh that’s cool. By the way, I just killed someone on turn 4 on the draw."
I was completely blinded by how awesome doing broken things felt and didn’t listen. I spent my time working on the G/R Devotion deck, and here is what I ended up playing in Louisville.
Creatures (26)
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 3 Arbor Colossus
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
Planeswalkers (9)
Lands (24)
Spells (1)
I came to this list by making a few changes to Mihara’s Pro Tour deck, most of which was cutting down on Scavenging Ooze. After playing the deck for a bit on Magic Online, I found that I was siding out Scavenging Ooze most of the time and in general felt like it was the weakest card in the deck.
I also found that I was mostly only losing to not drawing enough lands and not being able to cast my spells. This caused me to cut a Scavenging Ooze for the 24th land. Even with 24 lands I found that I wanted another; the only times I lost was still when I couldn’t cast my spells.
I cut a second Scavenging Ooze for a Clan Defiance too.
Last week I had two Clan Defiances in my sideboard while I was working with the deck on Magic Online and was continuously happy with the card every time I brought it in. It is another card that allows us to take advantage of the absurd amount of mana that the deck can generate, and it does a great job of killing planeswalkers in addition to killing Desecration Demon and Nightveil Specter. I mainly wanted the card for Blue Devotion decks since they have plenty of targets for it.
A lot of people asked me why I had the card in the deck this past weekend, and most of my answers were refuted. Six is a lot to try to kill a Desecration Demon. Nightveil Specter isn’t even that good against you.
I mainly just like the card as a way to do a lot of damage to our opponent and kill troublesome creatures that they happen to play. In the end, it was just a Fireball, but I think it was worth it.
I made a few small changes to the sideboard and ended up with three Mistcutter Hydras. I expected Mono-Blue Devotion to be pretty big in Louisville since it claimed three of the Top 4 slots at Pro Tour Theros. It was there for sure, but I didn’t play against it all tournament. The deck is still very good, though, so we have to continue to be prepared and have a plan for it.
I made it into day 2 at 7-2, losing the last round to Joe Demestrio. His take on the deck was pretty interesting and focused on being hyperaggressive with Kalonian Tusker and Reverent Hunter with Rogue’s Passage rather than Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx based devotion.
I was ready to battle come day 2 and felt really good. Then I ran into Esper Control, which dismantled me with removal into Ashiok into Supreme Verdict in two quick games. Feeling down, I still thought I had a good chance to money and beat a mirror match the following round. I was 4-0 in Green Devotion mirrors on the weekend and felt like I had a grasp on what was important and the right hands to look for.
I didn’t play against another Green Devotion deck for the rest of the day, and after an unfortunate draw with a friend, I lost every other match I played.
I was Thoughtseized and had my planeswalkers destroyed by Hero’s Downfall more times than I can remember on day 2, and I expect that this is going to become the norm as we move forward in this format. Brad was right when he said that he wanted to play the deck that was the best against Thoughtseize that had Thoughtseize in Louisville. Thoughtseize and Hero’s Downfall are the future, and combined they change the dynamic of the black-based decks from what we have been used to.
Previously, black-based control strategies struggled with powerful noncreature permanents like planeswalkers. With the printing of Hero’s Downfall, this has changed. Hero’s Downfall gives us a removal spell that will hit any creature (baring hexproof or protection) and any planeswalker. This lets us take advantage the fact that black has traditionally been a color that is very powerful alone but usually has to go outside of its color for answers to troublesome cards like planeswalkers.
Mono-Black is an archetype some people always want to make work, but outside of the Cabal Coffers decks from Odyssey block, there hasn’t really been a powerhouse Mono-Black deck. Hero’s Downfall fuels the current generation of Mono-Black, and it’s the type of deck that players will come out of the woodwork to play—and I should have played it in Louisville.
I had a blast this past weekend with G/R Devotion, but unfortunately I don’t think that the devotion base is where you want to be for G/R. I really like the G/R deck that Jon Stern took to second place in Louisville. Being much more aggressive with Kalonian Tusker, Boon Satyr, and Stormbreath Dragon seems like a very good place to be. Domri Rade is very good but wasn’t all that stellar in the devotion-based deck since we have a lot of "do nothing" mana creatures and tend to whiff on all of our planeswalkers. With Stern’s deck we have a large two-drop that we can curve into our Domri Rade as an actual removal spell when we need to, and Stormbreath Dragon gives us a big monster that we can curve into.
I like that we’re still playing Polukranos, World Eater. After Louisville I have a newfound respect for that card. It’s much more powerful than I originally anticipated, and that’s even without Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to fuel it. Being able to activate monstrosity for two with five mana or three with seven mana is very doable and backbreaking most of the time. Additionally, Polukranos combos well with Domri Rade as a removal spell, allowing you to monstrous it to kill something and then use Domri to fight something else. Just make sure you keep track how much damage will be going onto your Hydra!
Now that the bar has been set for the current Standard metagame, how do we attack it? This weekend is the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Indianapolis featuring the Invitational. While half of the Invitational will be Legacy, in order to Top 8 we will also have to be prepared for the Standard half.
How do we beat Mono-Black Devotion? Is Mono-Blue Devotion still going to be a powerhouse? A lot of very good players have been playing Esper Control recently. Is that something to consider? All of these are important questions that we need to answer in order to determine what to play at the Invitational.
Whenever I don’t really have anything in mind to do on Magic Online, I always just load up the W/R Aggro deck that Ross Merriam played to ninth at SCG Standard Open: Worcester. I keep saying every week that I think this deck is well positioned, but I never play it.
I still like Ross’ maindeck, but I think I would change the sideboard a bit. I don’t think it’s worth having the red cards in the sideboard since we have just eight red sources for Boros Charm, which is high impact enough that we can afford to risk not being able to cast it when we need to. Here is my current sideboard:
3 Frontline Medic
4 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
1 Gideon, Champion of Justice
3 Glare of Heresy
1 Precinct Captain
1 Pacifism
It might be right to find room in the main for the fourth Precinct Captain. It’s possible that Fiendslayer Paladin could be worth playing in the main as well since it blanks all of the removal from Mono-Black Devotion (except Devour Flesh, but we have a lot of one-mana creatures). I don’t think that we can play more than four creatures that cost three mana, and Banisher Priest is too good against all of the non Hero’s Downfall decks to pass up on.
The biggest pull back to this deck is Brave the Elements. I’ve said on many occasions that Brave the Elements is one of the most powerful cards in the format, and as we continue to move toward all of these monocolored Devotion decks, that sentiment holds true.
The only hit against the white deck is that I see Blood Baron of Vizkopa picking up in popularity, which is bad news for us. I’ve won some games against a resolved Blood Baron, but those usually included both Gideon, Champion of Justice and Ajani, Caller of the Pride. It can be done, but it certainly isn’t easy. If we want to play W/R Aggro this weekend, we will definitely need a plan for Blood Baron of Vizkopa.
Boros Charm is awesome, but it’s not the only card that we can splash for. I’d like to stick to a color combination that gives us a Temple to use (which leaves us with W/R and W/B). We have the option of looking at another color, but we might have to just stick with red and play Mizzium Mortars in our sideboard for Blood Baron of Vizkopa. If we end up going this route, I think we want one or two more red sources though.
A lot of people have asked me recently what I’m going to be playing in the Legacy portion of the Invitational. There are some awesome Legacy decks out there, but I think that I want to be drawing as many cards as possible with Griselbrand.
Thanks for stopping by this week and reading about how much of a buffoon I am for not listening to BBD, Brad, and Todd about how awesome their deck was. I’m going to have a reduced streaming schedule this week since I want to put in some work for the Invitational, so keep an eye out for that.
Next week I’m going to talk about what happened at the Invitational and what I’m looking at for the Modern portion of a tournament that I’ll be playing in the following weekend. I don’t have much experience with Modern, but I do live with Glenn Jones, so I should be able to figure something out!
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