It would depend what else I had in my hand, in addition to who/what I was playing against. :P For example if I also had a Supreme Verdict in hand but I didn't have a 4th land, I would obviously Divination against creature-based decks to have a higher chance of getting that 4th land to Verdict them if necessary, especially since land drops are so important for the deck regardless of what you're playing against. I also agree that a Quicken in place of a Divination is not a bad idea, I may actually try putting one back into my mainboard. I really like the deck a lot, I'm glad it has worked for you as well. Cheers.

With Nyx right around the corner look into getting Reprisal and Deicide , two great cards.

I play with almost the same deck and am really content with it too, having good results in smaller standard tournaments so far. Only differences are that my mainboard doesn't have elixir anymore and one less detention sphere. I also don't have the divinations.

Instead I have two more syncopates, one essence scatter and one last breath.

For lands I have one less mutavault (last breath instead you could say) and four off-color scrylands for value instead of basics.

I very much agree with you that celestial flare is one hell of a card.

How many times do you actually need your elixir to not get decked though? Think of it; how many times would you not rather have had an extra elspeth for example? At least for me, Elspeth or a counter spell wouldve been better in most cases; thats why I took it out. Elspeth is really great, not only as a finisher (hero's downfall might get in the way of that; although against most other decks it's gg's) but mainly as a stabilizer (against all the aggro decks where you trade one for one the first turns, you either need a revelation (which might be too late), or a verdict ( which because of low life totals could also be too late when they have for example a mutavault) or an elspeth (which stabilizes you first as supreme verdict would; and two turns later wins you the game). Only vs burn I can see the benefit of elixir as it trades for 1.5 cards or if you play a lot of long grindy matchups (although adding some more threats such as elspeth could just fix this problem as well)

Good luck with it!

Yes, sir_nibb you are indeed correct, and Deicide is now in my sideboard for those pesky Erebos, God of the Dead and Xenagos, God of Revels that have been popping up at my LGS. :P I'm not sure how I feel about Reprisal though, since most of the time, the thing with 4 power I have to really be able to deal with is Stormbreath Dragon (or sometimes a pesky main-deck Mistcutter Hydra I suppose), which Reprisal would only work for one of, although in the case of Mistcutter Hydra it would certainly be much more reliable. Thank you for the suggestions.

Thanks for the comments, wouter_007.

I think that having 4 Detention Sphere and some non-zero number of Divination mainboard is really important for the monoblack matchup because of Pack Rat and Thoughtseize . My deck is this way, because of how prevalent the monoblack devotion matchup has been both at my LGS and what I have perceived its (and its variants) strength to be in larger tournaments. Several people at my LGS also play control variants (mostly Bant or Esper, little U/W or American), and so having more things to deal with their Kiora Crashing Wave or Jace, Architect of Thought (really any form of card advantage through Kiora's -1 or Jace's -2) if necessary is beneficial more often than not. If my monoblack opponent decides to go on the rat plan, a Detention Sphere cleans things up quickly when I can't draw a Supreme Verdict - something that Banishing Light also would not take care of in this situation. I can definitely see why Last Breath would fit here and I have them sideboard against Boros Burn (good luck getting back your Chandra's Phoenix !), Voice of Resurgence /Soldier of the Pantheon decks, Monoblue devotion, and occasionally monoblack devotion.

Additionally, Divination really makes up for being Thoughtseize d by just getting me an extra card back, with respect to the monoblack matchup and in the control matchup, if I can get one early enough, it's usually great because the control opponent generally won't waste a counterspell on it turn 3, so I get to have a small increment of advantage there too.As for Elixir of Immortality , I think most of the time you are right that I could probably use an additional Elspeth, Sun's Champion , instead. It is obviously good against burn and in the control mirrors, but again even in the monoblack matchup, those players seem to highly value getting rid of elixir via Thoughtseize or Duress so that I can't just chain Sphinx's Revelation uncontrollably without regard to my library size. I will try next week playing without it and I'll probably either throw in a Last Breath or a Syncopate if I can't get my hands on another Elspeth, Sun's Champion (I only actually own two, but that is no excuse).

Your comments have made me realize I need to give a more in-depth description and justification of my deck, as well as the sideboard which is quite diverse at the moment. I'll continue to think about what you said and might get around to going more in-depth when I get some more free time and it isn't late. Thank you again for your thought-provoking comments. Best of luck with your Azorius deck.

Would it be worth it to cut in a few off-color scry lands here? Not a splash, but for the scry, I mean.

First; Right now, control beating Gruul is a hard one because of both Stormbreath and Mistcutter. Those combined with acceleration will kill you by turn 6. I know because I play a top tier home brew green devotion build that played 4 control decks last weekend that were top tier and literally 2-0ed each of them.

Second; You need something to give you an edge over other controls I recommend 2 Pithing Needle to shut down their walkers and 2 Ratchet Bomb to shut down their tokens. Pithing needle also shuts down Monoblack's Underworld connections, but you must name Swamp, and it shut's down Pack Rat plans.

Third; to beat red green, all you need is a way to shut off their acceleration. You'll want that Tidebinder Mage or Rapid Hybridization on your Sideboard, and pithing needle works here. Red Green, if done right, will bash your shit in. Check out my RUG it in deck to figure out what I mean.

Finally; In general, I recommend you play with a few more banishing light.

BliefCallerOfBeastzz What two cards do you think need to be taken out of my sideboard in place of the extra needle and bomb? You suggest a bunch of cards to add but don't say what to remove. I'm not going to run Tidebinder Mage because it's really really narrow (you're hoping to always have the 1-of Mage turn 2 to be able to tap their mystic, if they have it, instead of countering their Domri?), and Rapid Hybridization doesn't work on Mistcutter Hydra either.

Your RUG deck also doesn't have any maindeck Stormbreath Dragon or Mistcutter Hydra so it seems like game 1 would be really easy for a deck like mine to deal with your threats. Within the last month, I played against a RUG devotion player at FNM and beat him both in the swiss and in top 8 that night, although I'm not sure what number of cards are exact matches of your 75. He definitely had at least 2 Cyclonic Rift though.

Let me know about the sideboard card stuff. I like to keep it varied and broadly applicable to whatever matchup there may be, i.e, using more Deicide right now since it's already good plus MonoU is back and Erebos, God of the Dead is annoying in MonoB games 2 and 3.

OnyxMyr, none of those recommendations were meant to assist against my threats. They kill my acceleration, which turns off any Green deck.

I would rather kill threats than worry about a 1/1. :P

Right, but if I can't get my threats quickly, what am I gonna do? Mistcutter for two you to death? If you cut off my acceleration, I have a hand full of big assholes who will die as fast as they come down.

I dunno, I've never seen an aggressive deck "splash" blue for just one card, namely Prophet of Kruphix , especially when it doesn't run cards in the maindeck that are otherwise hard for me to deal with (such as ones with protection from U or W, or quasi-protection like Mutavault ). Like, what happens when I Supreme Verdict or Jace, Architect of Thought +1 on t4 or t5? If I verdict after you played your first Stormbreath Dragon on t4 by ramping with either Elvish Mystic (or Sylvan Caryatid ) then I still get your mystic too, without turning it into a 3/3 frog that can beat on me for a bit or tapping it with Tidebinder Mage which I will lose anyway by verdicting. I'm not really concerned with the RUG matchup (only played against it one night at all of the FNMs I've attended since Theros) as much as I am with the R/G and Jund matchup and the two mainboard Celestial Flare s really help with the 4 maindeck Stormbreaths in the R/G/x decks I normally am matched up with.

Regardless, would like to know what you would suggest for me to remove from the sideboard for the additional Pithing Needle and Ratchet Bomb so I can consider that, even though I think Pithing Needle is really rough against other control decks since it also shuts down my own stuff, but is obviously decent in R/G or Jund matches since they have some combination of Domri Rade , Xenagos, The Reveler , and Garruk, Caller of Beasts (or Chandra, Pyromaster ) all trying to do work. I think I previously had two Ratchet Bomb s sideboard, but opted out of one for a Deicide or Last Breath along the way since MonoU and MonoB have been putting up results.

I am still kind of new to Magic, but in my detain deck I have Ephara, God of the Polis and Archon of the Triumvirate they both help loads, I'd maybe try to put those two in there. The archon uses quite a bit of mana to summon though... I'm not sure if this input would help you any, but I thought maybe I'd just put it out there. :)

Also two planeswalkers that would work in a detain deck would be Venser, the Sojourner and Gideon, Champion of Justice , Oh! and don't forget Grand Arbiter Augustin IV , even though he's not a planeswalker he's a great help.

Maxdetain710 Those cards are certainly fun in a "detain" deck but several of them don't fit here, and a few aren't in "Standard" any more either. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is one of my favorite cards though, and I have him in my Oloro EDH deck! :)

Thank you for the comment.

Ah so your using standard :P alright haha! I must have missed the standard part...:P