Topic: [Standard] G/u Devotion Competitive

So I've been playing this fringe deck which evolved out of me playing G/b devotion with Doomwake Giant and noticing that both spot removal and especially board wipes just ended up being back breaking.  Killing my devotion which is a key advantage to playing a deck like G/b Devotion was easy for most of the other standard decks in the metagame. 

So I turned to Blue with counter magic, now that Supreme Verdict is gone the board wipes are all able to be countered.

With Blue I also tap into the power that is Prophet of Kruphix.

I've been playing this deck and tweaking it for a bit at a Grand Prix (early) at my LGS and a couple of SCG IQ.  I've had mixed variety of success but totally bombed at the GP with the early iterations of the deck but as I've tuned it to the current version I've seen some success.  Was one game away from Top 8 at the most recent IQ in my area and I probably lost on a bad keep in game 2. 

Anyway, here is the deck http://deckbox.org/sets/853425 as I'm planning to play it next.  Open to suggestions.  Basically once I've got devotion Nykthos online with Prophet and counter magic in hand the whole game seems unfair to my opponent.  Bident and Hornet Queen are just unfair for card advantage or killing all their dudes and clearing the way for polukranos and/or Arbor Colossus. 

Would love to hear the deckbox.org community thoughts on what I've been playing and working on.  BTW Aetherspouts is a new addition to the sideboard and hasn't been played or even tested yet.

Re: [Standard] G/u Devotion Competitive

A lot of wining comes from knowing your deck and knowing how to play in a given situation.  That's why most pros can pilot a ham sandwhich to victory.

I do like this deck, and tried it for a little bit. I was on the yisan version, but imo it suffers from not being able to get devotion/prophet online in time.  While backbreaking when it happens it can be fragile.  Prophet on its own will not win a game and applies little pressure.  It's basically a combo deck.  Prophet+nykthos+follower+big scary thing. While you don't always necessarily need all 4 pieces to win, if you "go off" then your opponent has a hard time coming back.

Overall i think it's fine and if you're good at piloting it will serve you fairly well.  There will just be games where you can't make it happen because you didn't get a piece of the combo.   

As far as aetherspouts, i think it's a bit mana inefficient, normally you only need to tempo your opponent. I like the way the deck interacts with retraction helix.  Helix, on a caryatid with a follower or two out, will do almost as much work as aetherspouts in this meta and it's a lot easier to cast.

I adapted the play style you're talking about and moved to a more proactive strategy.  Temur for me has been pretty consistent.  Almost every card in the deck is a threat.  Nothing is back breaking, but everything is "must answer".  You also get access to stubborn denial while only 1 less than negate is much easier to manage.  And denial just won't work in the UG deck. It also gives you access to other lines of play not available to UG.  You can't ever burn those last 3 hp if the board gets clogged, or remove a planeswalker easily. Also, i get to cast storm breath... people hate that. wink

My temur list atm : https://deckbox.org/sets/754821

Last edited by elpablo (2014-12-12 13:36:24)