MTG Salvation

i'd vote for thassa... if not for erebos. the instant speed draw indestructible permanent is just too awesome for me.

I'm surprised Purphoros is getting so much attention. I would rank them:

1. Thassa
2. Erebos
3. Nylea
4. Purphoros
5. Heliod

Mind you, this is looking at their actual application in possible Fall decks rather than in a vacuum.

I would probably only play Purphoros if I was building around him with Assemble the Legions. I don't think he fits into traditional red strategies, which would wanna drop most of their creatures before T4. Nylea is probably better in a G/R midrange strategy.

1A Thassa
1B Purphoros
3 Erebos
4 Nylea
5 Heliod

Thassa is the cheapest and has an upkeep trigger. She and Purphoros are the best because most Gods won't even be creatures and will contribute to the game by just existing. For example if a God becomes a creature, you use removal after attacks are declared, it fails to be a creature for that attack. This is the case for all of the Gods. They are functional as a Enchantment and the creature part is cake. Stop using their ability to be creatures to value them highly. Majority of the time, you will not have them as creatures. The highest likelihood of becoming creatures are Purphoros, Nylea, and Heliod.

Quote from Mr. Hiss

I suspect that Thassa might disappoint a lot of players. I also wouldn't be surprised if players would feel awkward casting it, knowing that it won't gain you any significant advantage. Sure, you can try and toss that virtual advantage story at me, but is that really worth three mana?

My vote

• My vote goes to Heliod. I honestly think he is very underrated. People might be intimidated by the cost of its activated ability, but the amount matters little if you're only using it during your opponent their end steps. The tokens he creates protect your life total, and allow you to stabilize against creature centered decks. It is quite ridiculous that some of you are unable to see its applications in control. Out of the five he is easily the best, being a one-man-army. Also he doesn't need any signficant support, unlike some of the others.

The gods that rely on creatures to function are in my opinion easily the worst. (Shame because Nylea is by far my favorite aesthetic wise.)

1. Heliod, God of the Sun
2. Erebos, God of the Dead
3. Thassa, God of the Sea
4. Purphuros, God of the Forge
5. Nylea, God of the Hunt

- Hiss.

I kinda agree with you.
Heliod is definitely the only good who can turn around the game by himself. Erebos gives you cards which in turn means more threats or answers. All others dont really do anything by themselves(Thassa can fix ur draw a bit but thats it)
Unfortunately they printed Glare of Heresay which is a two mana sorcery and exiles Heliod no matter if he is creature or not. Should he get big in Standard the answer to him is easy to find.

I honestly think they're all potentially playable, it really depends who gets the best support devotion wise (permanents with high colored mana cost).

The curve of Ash Zealot, hammer/Chandra's Phoenix, red god is something.

If you hammer on turn 3, you have a 6/5 indestructible with haste if you played 2nd turn Ash Zealot, which is prettty good.

The White has Boros Reckoner and Chained to the Rocks.

I think cheap permanents like that do something in addition to adding "free" devotion are going to be important factors in which devotion cards actually see play.

Purphoros is RDW's finisher and Thassa is a big ol' fish. Outside of these two, I don't really see them being constructed playable.

I voted Purphuros just because he can end the game very quickly and his synergy with cards that are already good. I'm positive he will see play, the others take more work and may have to wait for more cards.

Quote from quizzlemanizzle

Also for standard you obviously have to consider the weapon as well as the god as they are made with obvious synergies in mind.

Purphoros + Hammer is a strong combo
Nylea + Bow is a strong combo
Thassa + Bident seems a bit meh but in a blue thassa aggro deck you can force creatures in to draw cards or you could play 2 of those 1UU unblockable or evasive creatures to get devotion and draw cards..

We don't know the Spear and Whip yet but they surely will be synergetic too. In combination I also think that on first sight the red and green combo is stronger than thassa and bident.

Strongly disagree. For the purposes of evaluating the competitive power of these cards, we can safely disregard their interactions with other fringe-playable legendary permanents. Even if Purphoros + Hammer is good, stacking your deck with enough copies of Purphoros and his hammer to reliably draw one of each will yield so many dead draws that the legendary drawback will outweigh the benefits.

1. I don't understand why some of you seem to believe that Thassa will be run in control decks. Its not a control card. It shouldn't be in control decks. Don't run thassa in control. Run thassa in tempo decks or Blue aggro decks. A thassa deck should look similar to a modern merfolk deck (And it just so happens that merfolk are a major tribe on theros). I'll say it once again, Thassa should not be in control decks.

2. Purphos and helliod will be good in standard because boros reckoner is a thing.

Nylea, she's the most vanilla of the bunch but trample is solid as is her mana sink ability seeing as how the extra P will trample over. Plus green and red have the edge as they are likely to have a large number of colored permanents in play. I'm not sure if there's a deck for blue. White and Black are just too much mana for too little impact IMO.

In Constructed, you should assume that the Gods are almost never going to be creatures unless you're already winning the game. Devotion 5 is both hard to acquire and easy to disrupt.

Devotion is much better when it scales smoothly, as it does on the non-Godly devotion cards. Not all of those cards will be good, but they will get more mileage out of the Devotion mechanic itself.

Purphoros because he has synergy with chandra's pheonix, ash zealot and boros reckoner. And both his abilities are nasty and relevant.

He disputes places with burning earth but that one tends to see less and less play when 2 color decks start to take over the meta (like, right now, were RG, BG and WU are getting stronger each day).

I voted Purphoros, like most. I think the effect is just really good in a creature based standard with several token generators.

I think Erebos is probably a close 2nd.

Quote from harlannowick

1. I don't understand why some of you seem to believe that Thassa will be run in control decks. Its not a control card. It shouldn't be in control decks. Don't run thassa in control. Run thassa in tempo decks or Blue aggro decks. A thassa deck should look similar to a modern merfolk deck (And it just so happens that merfolk are a major tribe on theros). I'll say it once again, Thassa should not be in control decks.

You don't really justify any of this. Thassa is obviously good in control and crap in tempo. Why would a tempo deck tap out on turn three to not play a creature or anything to advance their baord for that turn? Isn't that the point of tempo?

Three mana for scrying once a turn is insane. Anything that adds consistency, especially for no mana cost, is really powerful.

Red god is second place. He's a secondary win con who very clearly defines what deck he is meant to be played in

Then the black one. He hates out lifegain (eh) and allows drawing. Maybe a control SB.

White gives vigillance to everything is good. Clerics are.meh, some late game/limited thing

Green is meh

Quote from WaterSilver

You don't really justify any of this. Thassa is obviously good in control and crap in tempo. Why would a tempo deck tap out on turn three to not play a creature or anything to advance their baord for that turn? Isn't that the point of tempo?

Fair enough, allow me to explain myself. Thassa as just an enchantment is just OK. Scry 1 on upkeep and 1U unblockable isn't particularly powerful. Virtually any deck which would want the scry has better access to draw(UW: sphinxs rev, UB: underworld connections). So if you are playing Thassa, you are going to want it to become a powerful undercosted fatty as often as possible. In order for thassa to be a creature, you will probably want about half your permanents to have UU in their mana cost. Control, as far as I know, has never been able to rely on permanents to control the board, The only decks I know of which would want an undercosted fatty, and runs enough permanents to support thassa, is aggro or tempo. for example, here are the cards which are available in standard which can support blue devotion. (Which I define as a permanent with at least UU in mana cost and at least half of it's mana cost is U)

frostburn weird
tidebinder mage
claustrophobia
deathcult rogue
nightveil specter
phantom warrior
simic manipulator
vassal soul
wall of frost
archaeomancer
domestication
lazav, dimir mastermind
water servant
jace, architect of thought
bident of thassa

I don't see the makings of a control deck there. What I do see is alot of evasive cards and a single psuedo removal. If wizards prints a few more decent UU merfolk (Which, what do you know, merfolk are a significant creature type in theros) then a thassa tempo or aggro deck exists. You can also note that in a tempo deck, you would be making use of all of thassa's abilities. You can use the unblockable to get through for the kill or race through a locked boardstate. The scry allows you to skip extra lands once you have the 3-4 lands you need to make the deck work. And you also have a solid chance of having an indestructible 3 drop which could swing for 5 on turn 4. While in a control deck, the only ability you'd be using is scry. Scry 1 simply isn't very good, especially on Thassa as it won't effect your draws untill turn 5. (unless you have another form of draw) So Is there a problem with any of my logic? Is there any cards that I missed? If not, then my conclusion stands and thassa should be better in a tempo or aggro deck than a control deck.

There is also the fact that thassa fits right into the same deck as master of waves. Both cards want the same thing. and in a blue devotion deck, both cards become impressively powerful.

Quote from panos:)

Seriously guys why is the red god so hyped, i don't get it. Let's compare him to inferno titan for example which is an older card. The titan is always a creature and can bolt anything without relying on a bunch of other creatures that are magically on your hand. You don't have to build around devotion or play with tokens to be effective. Was inferno titan played heavily and changed the meta? It was a strong card that saw some play but that's it. I fail to see why a weaker version of him that isn't always a creature, that doesn't do anything the turn he enters the battlefield and you have to play a lot of other cards to make it relevant, would change the meta. Its illogical. Also you are imagining decks that don't exist, you say tokens decks while token theme decks are in their worst state in years after rotation. RDW don't care about this guy he is slow. Yeah in an imaginary deck on paper he is a powerhouse but that deck doesn't exist and probably won't.

Inferno Titan was a 6 drop, versus Perphoros being 4. He's also indestructible, gives firebreathing to your team and has a nice ETB trigger for reach. Not exactly comparable. I'm not saying he's better, worse or anything since we don't have everything spoiled to see if he'll be amazing, but he certainly isn't any slouch.

I voted for Thassa, but honestly, if any one of these sees zero standard play, I'll be surprised.

Quote from panos:)

Inferno titan ETB effect is stronger, Purphoros might come into play turn 4 but deals damage by turn five while inferno deals damage by turn 6, and inferno titan has a firebreathing ability too. I am not saying that we can actually compare the two cards to get a winner but they are probably at the same power level and inferno didn't make it back then. I made a reference on him to more or less prove that cards which seem good on paper sometimes don't get played because they cant fit in the meta.

If we had a God that put 2 lands into play or put 2 zombie tokens then Purphoros would be outclassed, but we dont have that kind of Gods, thats why he isnt outclassed.

Quote from panos:)

We got gods like nylea and heliod that can make it to devotion and become creatures quite easily, without much effort since we already got good cards for them, yet the gods that cant make it to devotion, or are strunggling to build around and fit in a deck, are claimed to be stronger by the community. Purphoros, thassa and erebos are already outclassed.

Helliod and Puphoros are the most likely to achieve devotion. I'm going through mtg gatherer now to prove it, I will edit this post when I have the data

Quote from quizzlemanizzle

how does heliod have better devotion enablers than Purphuros? (Ash zealot, Boros Reckoner, Chandra Pyromaster... more)

[CARD]Boros Reckoner
[/CARD], Fiendslayer Paladin, Banisher Priest and those were just off the top of my head. There are probably more

Quote from Galerion

[CARD]Boros Reckoner
[/CARD], Fiendslayer Paladin, Banisher Priest and those were just off the top of my head. There are probably more

There was thread with stats that prove the best devotion color so far is Red but I wont go through the problem to find it.

Quote from quizzlemanizzle

how is that better? they are all 3 cmc

Precinct Captain and Boros Reckoner yeah that would enable him right away, solid.
But that doesn't seem better than Ash Zealot into Boros Reckoner into Purphoros.

Quote from Biefall

There was thread with stats that prove the best devotion color so far is Red but I wont go through the problem to find it.

Im not arguing.
I was just naming a few examples since there are quite a few creatures with double white in their mana costs.

I like each of them a lot.

Heliod: In my opinion, by far the one that has the most potential depending on what the block brings. If there are more cards like Sphere of Safety, Ajani's Chosen and Ethereal Armour that care for your enchantment count or when an enchantment enters the battlefield, Heliod could be the figurehead of a very powerful deck. Maybe the current support is already enough and Heliod is just being severely underestimated.

Thassa: My vote as of now. She is very good as an enchantment and requires next to no building around, except maybe to get her live. Though, I do think the blue-mana-heavy cards to help for devotion are pretty bad in general, unlike those in Naya colours.

Erebos: He could be anywhere from broken to nearly unplayable. Unlike Heliod, this won't depend on the support, but on if that activated ability is worth it. It seems very risky to me, but repeatable life-for-card has often been extremely powerful. His anti-lifegain ability is a bit late to the party, would have been really good with Thragtusk around. If anything, your own Thragtusk would have also been a great asset to help you draw more cards.

Purphoros: Like Heliod, he requires some building around. Unlike Heliod, the support he needs is available. I do think he is the most overrated of the gods. Not to say that he is bad, but I get the impression people think you can just shove him in your average aggressive red deck and expect great results. He is much too slow for an aggressive deck.

Nylea: Like Thassa, she doesn't much building around. Perhaps the easiest god to play. Though, I feel like her "maximum potential" is rather low compared to the four other gods, she seems a bit too "fair".