Limited resources thinks this card is going to be sweet for a build-around cycling deck. Personally I disagree.
Burning vengeance was a great build-around for a few reasons. First, it affects the board. Rarely did you want to go face with it. Faith does not. Second, flashback spells actually, you know, DID something. Cycling spells endlessly doesn't accomplish anything on the board, and you risk falling behind if you're not already at a total board stall. Flashback was also great because you could safely get value out of the card with the initial cast, giving you extra turns to hope to draw your BV to get value out of it. Cyclers have to sit in your hand and rot until you play Faith if you want any value from them. And finally, burning vengeance didn't cost any additional mana, which faith of the devoted does.
Think about it - faith of the devoted turns any cycling:2 cards into 3: drain 2 life, draw a card. Is that a good card? I mean it's pretty ok. It's not terrible. You'd probably play it. But you're spending a card and 3 mana for the enchantment to make it so, and you're also presumably cycling yourself through your business cards and into a grip full of lands in the process. After all, in the late game, cashing in a nonland for a draw is NOT a good deal, because there's a %chance of totally bricking every time you draw a card. And by the time you're spending mana to use this trash enchantment, you're probably doing just fine on lands. I mean, do you really even WANT to cycle a random desert cerodon for drain 2 if you're topdecking? I think I'd much rather just play it, rather than risk bricking a land.
Turning 1 mana cyclers into X1 drain 2, draw a card is a lot better, but again you're way behind by spending 3 mana for the enchantment. And there's not very many of those cards - only 1 in black and all the other non-blue colors. So you basically MUST be playing UB for this to have a chance of working imo. Most cycling cards are expensive and/or bad from behind, so your chances of putting pressure on your opponents life total are nil. So then you're trying to drain nearly 20 points of health by NOT playing anything, by cycling through your deck until you have a grip of lands. Good luck with that.
If there IS a version of this deck that works, I suspect it's going to need 3+ FotDs, many many cyclers (like 20+) and run a very low land count (like 12). Even then I really doubt it. I guess we'll see when people start drafting.
You're completely missing the discard side of it. There are several cards that take advantage of a nearly empty hand and there are some decent discard enablers. Granted, that deck is mostly going to be aggressive and won't want this sort of effect.
You're completely missing the discard side of it. There are several cards that take advantage of a nearly empty hand and there are some decent discard enablers. Granted, that deck is mostly going to be aggressive and won't want this sort of effect.
Fair point, I actually missed that part of the card. That said, there's very few discard outlets, I think the only one in black is that 2/2 zombie (also possibly unburden but probably only if it actually wins you the game). So I doubt it moves the needle very far.
Best case scenario, you're still what... draining for 6? Not too bad at the cost of around a lava axe, but it still requires you to pass a development turn for nothing. At least face-burn cards are outs to draw late. This isn't.
Best case scenario, you're still what... draining for 6? Not too bad at the cost of around a lava axe, but it still requires you to pass a development turn for nothing. At least face-burn cards are outs to draw late. This isn't.
I would bet this isn't the next coming of extort
Well and to even drain for 6, the minimum cost you're paying is 9 mana! AND, I think the even more critical piece is, you're cycling yourself out of 3 REAL cards! The biggest difference I think between BV and FotD is that cycling a card doesn't accomplish anything. To compare to extort, extort was good because extort cards did something on their own. You were rarely sacrificing board presence to extort. Whereas cycling a card decreases your board presence, it eats your tempo in the short term, and it puts your threats in the graveyard in the long term.
Cycling is still valuable for reducing the chances of mana screw, or when a chance for a relevant card is better than having a total dud (i.e. drawing limits of solidarity when you're getting beaten down). But you should be cycling expensive cards early and playing them late, FotD wants you to cycle them late, which is just a bad plan for contesting the board.
I can see this card doing some work in a Control v Control mirror since it turns your cycle cards into uncounterable, unanswerable drain 2 for the whole game. I can't ever imagine using this maindeck, though.
This card has to be bad. They had to test it and drop the power level during set design until it wasn't very good. Unlike Flashback, it's too easy to break cycling in Standard. Previous formats have shown that. Especially when there are cards that say "you may cycle for 0". They must have controlled the power level so that Constructed players running 40+ cyclers couldn't abuse it. That means a Limited deck with a few cyclers and no cycling lands won't get much value.
There wasn't the same risk with Burning Vengeance because Flashback is a much slower mechanic. Flashback grinds out value in long Limited games but can't be cashed in as easily in competitive Constructed, so they could afford to print something that triggered for free and hit creatures too.
EDIT: Compare Faith of the Devoted to weaker Burning Vengeance knockoffs like Molten Nursery. Nursery was in a format where there was enough "colorless matters" to support 4 drafters in a pod. A lot of things triggered it, it triggered for free, you still got to play your creature or cast your spell as normal, multiples triggered each other and stacked easily, and it could even hit creatures. It was still only OK. 1 damage is worse than draining for 2, but Faith triggers less often, costs mana, encourages you to give up your cards instead of playing them, and can't affect the board.
Faith of the Devoted is cool, but it has zero board impact, and it constantly costs mana. I ultimately think it's a pretty powerful build-around, but it's no Drake haven, or Archfiend of Ifnir. If you have a grindy deck with a lot of discard-matters stuff, this thing can generate a lot of advantage, but such decks are usually trying too hard to stabilize to justify a card like this. Once you've already created the board stall, this gets pretty powerful, so it's very match dependent. I'd say you should play this card if you can support it, but don't be afraid to board it out.
This was one of several cards I disagreed pretty strongly with LR on. My experience with the set so far is that it's all about board presence (even more than normal) and this card creates none by itself and discourages future development by funneling chunks of 2-3 mana into drain 2 triggers. When the set includes so many strong aggressive creatures like Bloodrage Brawler, Gust Walker, Horror of the Broken Lands, or green in general I would be embarrassed to have this in my main.
I see this as a sideboard card at best; I'm not taking it early or moving into black for it the way I would some of the other build arounds like Lord of the Accursed.
As someone who has played both with and against Faith of the Devoted, I can say that there are times when it gets pretty difficult to race, especially in cluttered board states where your creatures are rarely getting through. Obviously it isn't really worth including unless you have a ton of cyclers, but I've seen it give decks some much-needed late-game reach, even if they only have like 5 or 6 cyclers.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
As someone who has played both with and against Faith of the Devoted, I can say that there are times when it gets pretty difficult to race, especially in cluttered board states where your creatures are rarely getting through. Obviously it isn't really worth including unless you have a ton of cyclers, but I've seen it give decks some much-needed late-game reach, even if they only have like 5 or 6 cyclers.
When did you find this card helpful? I'm curious because I haven't seen it yet.
I have a 100% win rate vs Faith of the Devoted so far, even when opponent activated it 4-5 times. Each of those games opponent could not stop my creatures and had a creature shortage. I wonder why...
When did you find this card helpful? I'm curious because I haven't seen it yet.
I have a 100% win rate vs Faith of the Devoted so far, even when opponent activated it 4-5 times. Each of those games opponent could not stop my creatures and had a creature shortage. I wonder why...
I think it shines best in UB, where you can clog up the board and get in attacks with fliers. I played some early-game Dune Beetles and Soulstingers, stuck an Aven Initiate or Shimmerscale Drake, and chipped away in the air while cycling to Faith of the Devoted when I could. The drain did a decent job of accelerating my clock while padding my life total to keep my game plan going.
It's not super amazing by itself, which is why your deck has to adhere to a particular playstyle in order to maximize its effectiveness.
I saw a BR deck using it, too. He kept pressuring my life total until the board got clogged, then cast Faith of the Devoted and attempted to use it to finish me off, but he only got three drains out of it before I got there with a flyingcrocodile.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
When did you find this card helpful? I'm curious because I haven't seen it yet.
I have a 100% win rate vs Faith of the Devoted so far, even when opponent activated it 4-5 times. Each of those games opponent could not stop my creatures and had a creature shortage. I wonder why...
I think it shines best in UB, where you can clog up the board and get in attacks with fliers. I played some early-game Dune Beetles and Soulstingers, stuck an Aven Initiate or Shimmerscale Drake, and chipped away in the air while cycling to Faith of the Devoted when I could. The drain did a decent job of accelerating my clock while padding my life total to keep my game plan going.
It's not super amazing by itself, which is why your deck has to adhere to a particular playstyle in order to maximize its effectiveness.
I saw a BR deck using it, too. He kept pressuring my life total until the board got clogged, then cast Faith of the Devoted and attempted to use it to finish me off, but he only got three drains out of it before I got there with a flyingcrocodile.
Yeah, I get which decks it's theoretically supposed to go into. But that doesn't make it worth playing, even in those decks with adequate support.
I have never once lost to that card, even in decks with 10+ cyclers and looters. Every time the opponent casts it, I end up mysteriously far ahead in creatures and outrace him.
How could that happen? Not only did opponent cast a do nothing permanent instead of a creature or removal (falls behind 1 creature), but he's also cycling away his Desert Cerodons and Horror of the Broken Lands into lands while I'm drawing threats and beating down with midrange creatures. If he just cast the creatures instead, he would be able to kill mine and stop taking damage. Even if he drains me for 10 life over several turns, if my unchecked creatures are dealing 5-7 damage a turn, he's eventually going to lose.
Astral Slide and Lightning Rift decks worked so well because lategame you would cycle useless land draws (Secluded Steppe) into spells, while controlling the board with the triggered ability. Faith of the Devoted makes you cycle your useful threats into lands while doing nothing to the board. You would need a lot of 2-for-1 cycling recursion to not end up behind on threats.
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Burning vengeance was a great build-around for a few reasons. First, it affects the board. Rarely did you want to go face with it. Faith does not. Second, flashback spells actually, you know, DID something. Cycling spells endlessly doesn't accomplish anything on the board, and you risk falling behind if you're not already at a total board stall. Flashback was also great because you could safely get value out of the card with the initial cast, giving you extra turns to hope to draw your BV to get value out of it. Cyclers have to sit in your hand and rot until you play Faith if you want any value from them. And finally, burning vengeance didn't cost any additional mana, which faith of the devoted does.
Think about it - faith of the devoted turns any cycling:2 cards into 3: drain 2 life, draw a card. Is that a good card? I mean it's pretty ok. It's not terrible. You'd probably play it. But you're spending a card and 3 mana for the enchantment to make it so, and you're also presumably cycling yourself through your business cards and into a grip full of lands in the process. After all, in the late game, cashing in a nonland for a draw is NOT a good deal, because there's a %chance of totally bricking every time you draw a card. And by the time you're spending mana to use this trash enchantment, you're probably doing just fine on lands. I mean, do you really even WANT to cycle a random desert cerodon for drain 2 if you're topdecking? I think I'd much rather just play it, rather than risk bricking a land.
Turning 1 mana cyclers into X1 drain 2, draw a card is a lot better, but again you're way behind by spending 3 mana for the enchantment. And there's not very many of those cards - only 1 in black and all the other non-blue colors. So you basically MUST be playing UB for this to have a chance of working imo. Most cycling cards are expensive and/or bad from behind, so your chances of putting pressure on your opponents life total are nil. So then you're trying to drain nearly 20 points of health by NOT playing anything, by cycling through your deck until you have a grip of lands. Good luck with that.
If there IS a version of this deck that works, I suspect it's going to need 3+ FotDs, many many cyclers (like 20+) and run a very low land count (like 12). Even then I really doubt it. I guess we'll see when people start drafting.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I would bet this isn't the next coming of extort
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Cycling is still valuable for reducing the chances of mana screw, or when a chance for a relevant card is better than having a total dud (i.e. drawing limits of solidarity when you're getting beaten down). But you should be cycling expensive cards early and playing them late, FotD wants you to cycle them late, which is just a bad plan for contesting the board.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
There wasn't the same risk with Burning Vengeance because Flashback is a much slower mechanic. Flashback grinds out value in long Limited games but can't be cashed in as easily in competitive Constructed, so they could afford to print something that triggered for free and hit creatures too.
EDIT: Compare Faith of the Devoted to weaker Burning Vengeance knockoffs like Molten Nursery. Nursery was in a format where there was enough "colorless matters" to support 4 drafters in a pod. A lot of things triggered it, it triggered for free, you still got to play your creature or cast your spell as normal, multiples triggered each other and stacked easily, and it could even hit creatures. It was still only OK. 1 damage is worse than draining for 2, but Faith triggers less often, costs mana, encourages you to give up your cards instead of playing them, and can't affect the board.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
I see this as a sideboard card at best; I'm not taking it early or moving into black for it the way I would some of the other build arounds like Lord of the Accursed.
Pauper: Burn
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Marath, Will of the Wild - Ramp/Combo | Anafenza the Foremost - French | Uril, the Miststalker - Voltron | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Goodstuff
Ghost Council of Orzhov - Tokens | Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Control | Isamaru, Hound of Konda - Tiny Leaders
In the meantime, I think I'm just gonna ignore limited resources for prerelease hints.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
When did you find this card helpful? I'm curious because I haven't seen it yet.
I have a 100% win rate vs Faith of the Devoted so far, even when opponent activated it 4-5 times. Each of those games opponent could not stop my creatures and had a creature shortage. I wonder why...
I think it shines best in UB, where you can clog up the board and get in attacks with fliers. I played some early-game Dune Beetles and Soulstingers, stuck an Aven Initiate or Shimmerscale Drake, and chipped away in the air while cycling to Faith of the Devoted when I could. The drain did a decent job of accelerating my clock while padding my life total to keep my game plan going.
It's not super amazing by itself, which is why your deck has to adhere to a particular playstyle in order to maximize its effectiveness.
I saw a BR deck using it, too. He kept pressuring my life total until the board got clogged, then cast Faith of the Devoted and attempted to use it to finish me off, but he only got three drains out of it before I got there with a flying crocodile.
Yeah, I get which decks it's theoretically supposed to go into. But that doesn't make it worth playing, even in those decks with adequate support.
I have never once lost to that card, even in decks with 10+ cyclers and looters. Every time the opponent casts it, I end up mysteriously far ahead in creatures and outrace him.
How could that happen? Not only did opponent cast a do nothing permanent instead of a creature or removal (falls behind 1 creature), but he's also cycling away his Desert Cerodons and Horror of the Broken Lands into lands while I'm drawing threats and beating down with midrange creatures. If he just cast the creatures instead, he would be able to kill mine and stop taking damage. Even if he drains me for 10 life over several turns, if my unchecked creatures are dealing 5-7 damage a turn, he's eventually going to lose.
Astral Slide and Lightning Rift decks worked so well because lategame you would cycle useless land draws (Secluded Steppe) into spells, while controlling the board with the triggered ability. Faith of the Devoted makes you cycle your useful threats into lands while doing nothing to the board. You would need a lot of 2-for-1 cycling recursion to not end up behind on threats.