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Main » Articles » Analyzing Green Devotion

Analyzing Green Devotion

Jarvis Yu
Posted on October 15, 2014
 Reddit

After watching the Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir Standard portion, and after playing two Standard tournaments last weekend, I firmly believe that Green Devotion will remain a fierce contender.

In particular, I noticed that Mihara and Gaudenis Vidugris chose to play green-splash-black devotion with four copies of See the Unwritten.

For comparison’s sake, here’s Ross Merriam’s winning list from Rhode Island StarCityGames States:

Green-Splash-Black Devotion ? Khans of Tarkir Standard | Ross Merriam, 1st at StarCityGames States

He changed only a few slots (mostly with the addition of Pharika, God of Affliction to the main deck and of Mistcutter Hydras—to help address Jeskai Wins—to the sideboard). His argument was that the core strategy is strong, so there’s no big reason to fix what isn’t broken. I believe he also lost in the Top 4 of Sunday Connecticut States to Kevin Jones playing Jeskai Wins.

His mana curve looks like the this:

CMC 1 2 3 4 5 7 X
Number 4 8 5 9 4 2 4

Genesis Hydra is a 5-mana spell in the deck barring extreme circumstances (such as seeing an Elvish Mystic on top of your deck with Courser of Kruphix since playing it for less than that only has hits on twelve mana creatures).

Green-Splash-Black Devotion ? Khans of Tarkir Standard | Gaudenis Vidugris

There is a slight de-emphasis on the constellation package, but the four-of See the Unwritten makes up for it. The inclusion of two Arbor Colossus is a nod to the expectation that there would be a lot of Jeskai Wins decks.

The mana curve of the deck currently looks like this (sorted by converted mana cost):

CMC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number 4 8 5 7 6 4 2

This has a higher mana curve than the Ross Merriam’s list, namely due to the changing of two Eidolon of Blossoms to two Arbor Colossus and four Genesis Hydras to four See the Unwritten.

Mihara also had an interesting take on the green-splash-black devotion list:

Green-Splas-Black Devotion ? Khans of Tarkir Standard | Makihito Mihara

The inclusion of Whip of Erebos makes a lot of sense once you realize that Jeskai Wins is an annoying matchup (in which you often lose by being burnt out by 4-damage spells). A single attack with Whip active means you instantly stabilize and that the game gets out of hand for your Jeskai Wins opponent. In addition, it is another enchantment for Doomwake Giant and Eidolon of Blossoms, and it gives you a nice way to rebuy on those two or on the four Hornet Queens.

Here’s Mihara’s mana curve:

CMC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number 4 8 4 9 4 4 4

The numbers are sort of misleading here because Whip of Erebos isn’t truly a 4-drop (you’d rather lead with a Polukranos, World Eater or Eidolon of Blossoms on 4 mana). Whip of Erebos is more accurately a 6-mana spell, albeit one with which you can hope to also play another mana creature on that turn.

In addition, in some games, Whip of Erebos is going to be difficult to cast, given you have ten lands and four Sylvan Caryatid that produce black mana for a total of 14 black mana sources, but top-decking a Sylvan Caryatid the turn you need to cast a Whip is certainly annoying.

After watching the Friday coverage and realizing ChannelFireball Pantheon was on Unwritten Devotion, I chose to add one to my decklist for Maryland SCG States, and I sleeved up the following list:

Green-Splash-Black Devotion ? Khans of Tarkir Standard | Jarvis Yu

I was expecting a lot of green mirrors and Jeskai Wins (hence the full boat of Setessan Tactics and Nylea's Disciples in the sideboard). In addition, Bow of Nylea is a reasonable card against both of those decks (Bow grants deathtouch in mirrors, which is absurd with Polukranos, World Eater), and Bow stabilizes your life total against the burnout plan of Jeskai Wins. Arbor Colossus comes in against Jeskai Wins as well.

Here’s the mana curve analysis:

CMC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 X
Number 4 8 5 9 5 1 1 4

My mana curve is in between for the most part. I chose to play one See the Unwritten to see how good it was, but I did not want to cut any of the Genesis Hydras since they are valuable weapons against countermagic (since the trigger avoids any counterspells), and they are valuable sources of card advantage against everything else.

My matchups looked like the this:

Notes on Playing Any of the Above Green Devotion Lists

Nykthos math isn’t difficult if you shortcut in the following ways:

Having 3 or less devotion gets you nowhere on Nykthos, so don’t bother doing the math there.

Voyaging Satyr
If (Nykthos) + (two other lands) = the number of green mana symbols you have (say X), then for every Voyaging Satyr you have, it’ll be X − 2 for each of them, so just add X − 2 for every Voyaging Satyr activation.

For example:

  • 1 Satyr: X + X – 2 = 2 × X − 2

  • 2 Satyr: X + X – 2 + X − 2 = 3 × X − 4

  • 3 Satyr: 4 × X − 6

  • 4 Satyr: 5 × X − 8

Of course, if you want to cast spells in between, you need to manually compute by adjusting X (I recommend using a pad and paper anyway to keep good notes of what’s going on in the game).

In post-board games against a lot of decks, I like to shave a bunch of each of the things (since it’s better to have access to a bit of everything given Genesis Hydra is in your deck). Against a lot of decks, Voyaging Satyr is a much weaker Game 2 or Game 3 card, so I take out a lot of copies of that card. Against aggressive decks, Eidolon of Blossoms and Hornet Queen may be too slow to get the job done.

To Summarize

I haven’t really seen a list for green-splash-red devotion that I like, but the concept seems strong in mirrors since Crater's Claws will end a lot of games out of nowhere (especially on board parity).

Abzan Midrange winning the Pro Tour is a Good Thing™ for green devotion since green devotion is favored against that deck due to how slow Abzan Midrange is.

Jeskai Wins coming in second is annoying, assuming some people still want to adopt that deck, but it’s definitely a winnable matchup if you prepare.

Jeskai Ascendancy is currently a terrible matchup for most of the lists of Green Devotion, but if I expected more of that deck, I would try to find room for a combination of Naturalize and Thoughtseize.

U/B control is also not an ideal matchup since that deck has many counterspells for your relevant cards, and the green deck is full of irrelevant mana guys. Genesis Hydra helps alleviate the problem to some degree, but it is not enough to just have four Genesis Hydras to try to beat that deck with. Thoughtseize would be okay against U/B.



I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and I’d appreciate any comments here or on Twitter @jkyu06.

Jarvis

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TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, decklist, jarvis yu, khans of tarkir, #mtgktk

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