MTG Salvation

Hey Team Stompy, been a long time since I've posted on here. I upgraded decks over the past couple of years, but always loved this deck. I recently sold the majority of my expensive Modern cards, but kept this deck to play whenever I get the chance. About a month and a half ago, I went to FNM and played my old Dungrove list. First Magic event in over three months and went 3-1. I was happy. However, with the new Aether Revolt cards, I decided to build a new deck to try and take advantage of the Revolt mechanic. Here is what I threw together, mistakes and all!


In Round 1, I got paired up against a deck I always lose to, regardless of what I'm playing. Elves. Even tinier green men. I was on the play Game 1 and had no Turn 1 play. Got outraced fast, with two Ezuri triggers in one turn. Game two, he got all the mana dorks. I got him as low as 10 life, but then they played Nissa Revane and gained 14 life. 0-1

For Round 2, I was paired up against Abzan. Game 1, I kept a one lander on the play, because I had lots of action. I didn't see a 2nd land til Turn 7, and a third took a while. I still got him as low as 3 though. Game 2, he had double IoK, but I had a ridiculous amount of threats and pushed the damage through. In Game 3, I had to mulligan due to no land. They had two Thoughtseizes, but I was able to get him down to 6 with Militant beatdown. He pulled off a Damnation to survive, but I was able to Beast Within my own Forest, and finished him off with a Vines kicked. 1-1

My third match I was paired against the resident Burn player. This match raced to three games very quickly. He got me games one and three due to Grim Lavamancer. Game three I had him at 1 life, but was unable to seal the deal. 1-2

The final match of the night had me battling with UW Control. This was another 3 game round, with a close third game. The first game had my opponent keeping a one lander, and I was able to Rancor up a Militant for the win. I kept another bad one-lander in Game 2 and didn't get a 2nd for several turns. Game three I kept a two lander, but that's all I saw until the game was already almost over. I was fighting back after one Supreme Verdict, but then they had to go and get a second one off a small Sphinx's Revelation. He only went back up after he was at 5 and beat me down with Collonades. 1-3

First off, I know I screwed up big with the Mandrills instead of Dismembers. I was trying to be too cute with the extra fetches to try and feed into the delves, but it never made any difference. I also feel that if my mana had been more helpful in a couple of games, I could have gone 2-2 or even 3-1. The Elves matchup was unwinnable, so I don't even worry about that one. I also chose to use B. Defense instead of Aspect simply due to the reduced number of Green mana symbols, since I wasn't playing Baloths. I also felt it was important to try and protect these earlier and bigger threats. A turn 2 4/3 is pretty sweet, I must admit.

I'm debating going back to traditional Stompy for FNM tonight or modifying this list. If I can remember to, I'll try and keep track of what happens and get a report back a little sooner than it took for this one.

I attended a PTQ in Louisville, KY yesterday afternoon and ran a version of this awesome deck. Before I report in, here's the build I ran:



This deck started out fantastic, and probably was doing great later on, but due to errors on my part, it petered out in the end. I started off at a very solid 5-0 in a 137 person tournament. Unfortunately, I rattled off 2 losses in a row and then scooped the last round to someone who was still in Top 8 contention (16 points vs my 15). However, he didn't get Top 8, but 9th. My other two losses were to very good players who made the Top 8. I actually ended up beating the guy who rode up with me on the trip, and he also made Top 8.

Here is the breakdown of my matches (to the best of my recollection):
Round 1: Tron-WIN
Round 2: Affinity-WIN
Round 3: Gifts-WIN
Round 4: Reanimator-WIN
Round 5: Scapeshift-WIN
Round 6: Affinity-LOSS
Round 7: Jund-LOSS
Round 8: Melira Pod-INTENTIONAL SCOOP

While this deck isn't as fast as Affinity overall, it is still so much fun to play. A friend of mine compared this deck to Infect, but the creatures actually do something. There were countless times where I was able to run over my opponents when they tried to remove my Rancor-ed dude with a Bolt or Decay, only to take it out of range with a Vine or Groundswell and sometimes even win right there.

One of the best moments of the entire day was in Round 3 when my opponent wiped my board through Paths and finally a Supreme Verdict, only the next turn for me to drop a Dungrove Elder and throw a Rancor on him. It didn't matter at that point that he had a Batterskull, because at that point in time, the Dungrove was an 11/9 trampler! He was able to Oblivion Stone it, but then the next turn I played another Elder. At that point, some people started to take notice of my deck. There were several people throughout the day who wanted to check the deck out and flipping through it, they laughed and said it looked like so much fun.

While I obviously wanted to get into the Top 8, I am still really happy with how the deck did yesterday. I went in with the expectation of maybe getting 3 or 4 wins, but definitely not Top 8 contention in the 6th and 7th rounds. The main is just about perfect to me, and the only change I would for sure make at this time is remove the Choke and throw in an extra Relic.

Actually, they did this between 2005 and 2007. Do a Google search for "magic the gathering pro player cards" to see them. Lots of older players like Kai Budde and Gabriel Nassif.

Two short stories for y'all. It was the release weekend for Rise of the Eldrazi. I decided to go to my LGS and play in a draft. Terrible pulls, no real win conditions, so I easily lost the first round. Since I was just getting back into Magic after a 3 year hiatus, I decided to buy 2 more packs. One pack was junk, but the other pack was a foil Gideon Jura, who at the time was valued at $80+. I sold the card to the store for $50 cash, paying for my draft, gas, extra packs, and even a few extra bucks to keep my newlywed wife happy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I entered a free Pack Wars tournament (open a pack, take out the token, add 3 of each basic land, and that's your deck) using M13 Core. I literally got the worst rare for the format...Battle of Wits. I only had 2 creatures in the entire pack. Needless to say I lost that one pretty quickly.

MagicMav_2, here is a write-up explaining my most recent iteration of Monoblack Devotion that I wrote up on another thread.

This past weekend, I ran an updated version of MBD with the only two cards from M15 being Sign in Blood and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I went to FNM and went 4-0. Here was the list I ran:



Overall, the deck ran well, but there were a few changes that I wanted to make. First and foremost, Lifebane Zombie needs to be in the main deck rather than relegated to the side. There are too many decks with green creatures running around (not as worried about white creatures right now) such as Green Devotion, Monsters (G/r, Jund, and Naya), and in my local meta, even a few cheeky Simic decks. By taking out the Nightveils and moving the Zombies to main, that cleared up 4 sideboard slots. To fill in the gaps, I brought in an extra 2 Bile Blights, a third Dark Betrayal, and 1 Drown in Sorrow.

With the changes made, I went to another FNM-style event at my store on Saturday and again, went 4-0. Even though the Urborgs made it easier to cast Nightveil, I was so much happier drawing Lifebane in my first games of each match, even if only to get information from an opponent's hand. The intimidate ability also came into play a lot, as I only played one deck both nights that played black.

One card in my main that I am still iffy on is Pharika's Cure. It's mostly there to take out weenie creatures, but it can also help offset the life lost from Underworld Connections and Sign in Blood. Unless I was playing an aggro deck, I generally ended up siding it out. When I did get to use it though, I really was glad I had it (Naya Aggro).

Sign in Blood is absolutely amazing. I played it in Standard a couple years ago and loved it then. Most of the time, it's a 2-for-1 Underworld Connections, but I love it when I Sign in Blood my opponent who is at 1 or 2 life. The look on their face is priceless.

Finally, I would recommend having 2 Urborgs over 1, maybe even up to 3. Being able to cast a Hero's Downfall with only 2 Mutavaults open but still be able to cast Bile Blight is awesome.

If you're a bigger fan of Nightveil Specter over Lifebane Zombie, I would recommend taking a look at Dan Jessup's winning decklist from the Open this past weekend.

First and foremost, congratulations on getting to the Pro Tour! Second, here is my $0.02 on Monoblack Devotion.

This past weekend, I ran an updated version of MBD with the only two cards from M15 being Sign in Blood and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I went to FNM and went 4-0. Here was the list I ran:



Overall, the deck ran well, but there were a few changes that I wanted to make. First and foremost, Lifebane Zombie needs to be in the main deck rather than relegated to the side. There are too many decks with green creatures running around (not as worried about white creatures right now) such as Green Devotion, Monsters (G/r, Jund, and Naya), and in my local meta, even a few cheeky Simic decks. By taking out the Nightveils and moving the Zombies to main, that cleared up 4 sideboard slots. To fill in the gaps, I brought in an extra 2 Bile Blights, a third Dark Betrayal, and 1 Drown in Sorrow.

With the changes made, I went to another FNM-style event at my store on Saturday and again, went 4-0. Even though the Urborgs made it easier to cast Nightveil, I was so much happier drawing Lifebane in my first games of each match, even if only to get information from an opponent's hand. The intimidate ability also came into play a lot, as I only played one deck both nights that played black.

One card in my main that I am still iffy on is Pharika's Cure. It's mostly there to take out weenie creatures, but it can also help offset the life lost from Underworld Connections and Sign in Blood. Unless I was playing an aggro deck, I generally ended up siding it out. When I did get to use it though, I really was glad I had it (Naya Aggro).

Sign in Blood is absolutely amazing. I played it in Standard a couple years ago and loved it then. Most of the time, it's a 2-for-1 Underworld Connections, but I love it when I Sign in Blood my opponent who is at 1 or 2 life. The look on their face is priceless.

Finally, I would recommend having 2 Urborgs over 1, maybe even up to 3. Being able to cast a Hero's Downfall with only 2 Mutavaults open but still be able to cast Bile Blight is awesome.

Again, congratulations on making to the Pro Tour, and good luck to you in it!

I played CVM's list at SCG: Columbus and like mootown2, I also went 8-2, finishing in 22nd place. My only losses were round 1 to R/w Burn and round 9 to Matt Hoey. I beat a couple of Bant Control lists, one monoblue (I got rid of his devotion by having my Polukranos fight a Frog Lizard that had Claustrophobia on it), a mirror Jund list, 2 Naya aggro lists, and two other lists that I can't remember at this time.

Over the past Standard season, I have switched up from G/W aggro, to G/u Devotion, to Monoblue then U/w Devotion, to Monoblack then B/g Devotion, and finally playing Jund Monsters. Before the tournament, I only had about 6 games under my belt with the deck, all against Jund Control played by a multi-Top 8 SCG Open player, with me getting 4/6 games. Even though I lost the first round, this deck is the best I've played all year. Even with questionable hand for other decks, I had no problems keeping two landers on the play and always felt like I was never drawing dead. I'm playing in two weeks at a Super IQ and plan on rocking Jund Monsters again, hopefully with an invite in hand at the end. I was so impressed with the deck that I picked up most of the cards that I needed to build it (borrowed about half the deck). All I lack now is the Domris.

B/g Devotion definitely needs 25 lands. As mentioned above, the extra lands are crucial for Pack Rats and Underworld Connections, but there are a couple more reasons beyond that. For one thing, you need the extra mana to activate your Mutavaults without tapping out completely. This allows you to not only attack on an empty board, but also leave up mana for a reactive kill spell. Also, you want to be able to consistently have removal spell mana up while loading the boards with threats. If you miss a turn 5 land, you are forced to only play one spell, such as a Desecration Demon, versus playing two spells like Doom Blade and Lifebane Zombie. While DD is admittedly very powerful, you still want to be able to react accordingly to your opponent.

To me, Dragonshields are the best overall sleeve. I have tried many different types of sleeves since coming back to Magic in 2010. I started off with the cheap basic Ultra Pros, with results that you would now expect. My Ultra Pro sleeves that I still had on my casual deck from 2007 have lasted longer than any of these. I then switched to KMC and used them for a while, but noticed they faded a lot over time, creating obvious differences when I had to replace a sleeve in a deck.

When Innistrad came out with flip cards, I decided to try out Dragonshields for the first time ever due to the opaqueness. I was instantly hooked on them and have bought more of them than any other. However, when I was playing at a PTQ or StarCity Open, I had to get KMC matte sleeves instead due to not having any Dragonshields. Out of all the sleeves I've tried, KMC matte is my silver medal in quality.

I've started double-sleeving since getting my first Legacy deck built. I use Ultra Pro's Pro Fit sleeves (no KMC at my LGS)inside of Dragonshields, and they work just fine. To get the air out, I simply compress the deck as much as possible and then squeeze the entire deck into a high quality deck box with solid filler to get it as tight as possible. After sitting in the box for a week or so, it's ready to go.

Thanks for the compliments! My dad appreciates them. My dad has no problems doing customized work, so if there are any specific items (emblem, fasteners, hinges, etc.) that you would like put on, he is very willing to work with you.

Each box has a compartment to hold the dice or glass beads in. He uses high-grade velcro to secure the corners to quarter round that he places inside of each corner of the compartment. I have been carrying a box around for about 4 months now when he made the first one, and I have yet to have one open when I am carrying it around. He uses strong latches and hinges to secure each box.

Feel free to e-mail him on his etsy store if you have any questions/concerns.

Check my signature for other Magic deck box options!

My main goal at this time is to get to play on the Pro Tour somehow. I don't really care if it's by winning a PTQ or doing very well at a GP. I just want to play at least one PT.

I was able to accomplish one of my goals at the end of last year when I was able to build my first quality Legacy deck. I built Merfolk and was able to get the Force of Wills and Wastlands before the price jumps recently. I got to take it to SCG: Nashville where I went 5-4 in my first ever Legacy event. I might have been able to make cash if I knew how to play against Dredge better, but even so, I am hooked on Legacy now.

A non-playing goal for me would be to get back into art and eventually try and have at least one card with my artwork on it. I haven't really done anything artistically beyond a few alters in almost 6 years, so I would have to work for a long while to get my skill level back up.

First off, thanks for starting a primer for this! I've been playing Uw Devotion for about a month now. My first time at an FNM with it, I went 4-0, then the very next day, I got 2nd at Game Day, losing in the final to UW Control. I still felt really confident about it next week, but I went 2-2 at FNM, losing to the mirror and to, you guessed it, UW Control again!

I was flip-flopping between this and GW Aggro the next day for a PTQ, but ultimately stuck with Uw. I rocked my first two matches, crushing Naya Aggro and GR Monsters 2-0 each match. However, my very next two matches I had to play Bw decks that had removal for everything I put down both games. The guy that ended up winning the PTQ was the UW Control player from FNM, so at least I lost to a winner! I got frustrated, played GW Aggro for a bit, but got frustrated with that as well and sold my copies of Brimaz to get extra money.

I've been reevaluating this deck heavily since I am going to GP: Cincinnati this upcoming weekend. I was considering a switch to GR Monsters myself, but I really don't feel like trying to spend more money to build a deck from the ground up. I also feel that I know the deck pretty well and many of the lines. I have been debating on playing this or straight mono-blue, but I feel that Detention Sphere alone is strong enough to warrant playing Uw.

In the control matchup, I have been trying to read up on strategy, and I noticed Matt Costa's article from last week on Channel Fireball where he has three Jace, Memory Adept in the sideboard. At first I felt this was way too many, but I think this is the best way possible to beat control and think I will make the change. Instead of all the counter spells other than Gainsay, I think this guy has the best win-strategy against this deck's greatest nemesis. If you haven't read his article, I recommend it highly. The only downside is that he doesn't give a thorough sideboard strategy against the major decks. Other than that, very insightful.

Here is the latest one. It took a little longer to get it made because he slipped and hurt his shoulder during the ice storm in the area. This one is coated with a textured paint that gives it a cool stone finish.

And here is the latest one.