Devotion Dilemmas
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 6, 2015, 10:51 p.m. by alexthegreat38
Hey all,
So 
Devotion is still a very powerful and very fun deck, and I'm gonna play it until Theros/M15 rotates.
There are a few dilemmas I've found after looking over decklists. Most of the decks have a pretty large consensus of cards to run. However, there are a few differences I've seen lately. All sides of these dilemmas have seemed to do pretty well, with Pro Tour appearances and SCG Regionals appearances for all of them.
Which of the following cards do you think are better in their respective roles?
Xenagos, the Reveler vs. Nissa's Pilgrimage: I've seen some players run Pilgrimage instead of Xenagos. This doesn't seem super great to me, but I guess it has good synergy with Courser of Kruphix and helps to thin your deck? If it could put two lands straight onto the battlefield that would be nuts, but since you can only play one immediately, it doesn't seem to ramp as quickly or as effectively as Xenagos, the Reveler. The option to just make a million Satyrs to annihilate control decks is also really nice.
Genesis Hydra vs. See the Unwritten: Genesis Hydra is great against 
control decks because he gets you a guy even if he gets countered. I'm seeing a lot of lists running See the Unwritten, which I guess is powerful because it can get you a 7 drop for 6 mana? It seems like in order for it to be super valuable, you need to cast it with ferocious; but I feel like in this deck, if you have ferocious and then 
just lying around, you're already winning. Thoughts?
Deathmist Raptor vs. Nissa, Vastwood Seer Flip: The Raptor is cool because he gives us two devotion and has awesome synergy from the graveyard, giving us a free guy when we flip up Rattleclaw Mystic or manifests from Whisperwood Elemental. However, Nissa is seeing a lot of play. What's the verdict here?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
alexthegreat38 says... #3
Good ideas and reasoning, thanks. The reason I see Deathmist Raptor vs. Nissa, Vastwood Seer Flip as a dilemma is because most of the competitive devotion decks have agreed on a vast majority of the cards that belong in the deck. After 24 lands, we have 36 slots in the deck: 4 Elvish Mystic, 4 Rattleclaw Mystic, 4 Sylvan Caryatid, 4 Courser of Kruphix, 3 to 4 Polukranos, World Eater, 4 Whisperwood Elemental, 3 to 4 Xenagos, the Reveler/Nissa's Pilgrimage, 2 to 4 Genesis Hydra/See the Unwritten, and 3 to 4 Dragonlord Atarka. Taking all that into account, it's very hard to find extra slots for more 3-drops, and thus I haven't seen a list that runs both. I might be able to make it work by toying with the numbers a bit, though.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #2
Xenagos, the Reveler over Nissa's Pilgrimage because A) you pump out threats, B) you don't have to take a turn off to ramp, C) Xenagos ramps harder
As for Hydra vs Unwritten, it depends on your meta. If you see a lot of control decks, Genesis Hydra is the way to go, if you don't, See the Unwritten is very very powerful. You said if you have ferocious and 6 open mana, you're already winning...not always the case, you need that last punch. Idk about you, but I've been able to beat a Whisperwood Elemental pretty easily with a variety of decks so the ferocious isn't that game ending. Putting 2 high impact threats onto the board is very relevant and if you run Raptors, you can choose 2 different threats and throw the Raptor in the yard to get back later, which would net you potentially 3 threats.
As for Deathmist Raptor Vs Nissa, Vastwood Seer Flip, I see no reason not to run both. Some number of Raptors and some number of Nissas would work fine. I can see maybe 2-3 of each being reasonable.
August 7, 2015 1:25 a.m.