MTG Salvation

Also i agree about jeskai. I dont really consider thrun necessary, but its a great card for the matchup. For me jeskai board is just 3 moons. The hard matchup is uw control, and the problem for me is thrun not being good enough. For uw we just have to have a fast start though, and its ok. The problem is that they can answer utopia sprawl.

Vivians invocation seems like a downgrade from summoners trap

Quote from CurdBros »

What are we thinking of these?





very interesting indeed.

I wanna windmill slam 10/10s all day...

Quote from askrzypczak »

I agree, theres a million builds of green possible. Ive played most of them, including things like 3 carnage tyrant 2 rishkars expertise + 3 big garruk. But in the end i keep coming back to bte pact, for the explosiveness. Its less consistent than other builds, but the raw power lets you beat matchups that you should lose. In the top 8 match against infect i turn 3 hoofed him on the play game two, winning a preboard game with 0 removal main deck. His turn 2 play was blighted agent, I would have lost on his turn 3. Being able to race infect on the play is a big deal.

Also, earlier i misspoke about oath of nissa. I do not board it out against goyf, although i used to. Here is my current board plan for jund: -2 pact, -hoof, -slime, -scooze, -ruric thar (pact instead if playing leyline). +2 ballista, +2 obstinate baloth (or leyline of sanctity), +2 relic of progenitus. This is a new plan, less than 2 months old. I used to board out bte and oath, and board in moon, but i feel the new plan is a lot better. I also tried wilt leaf leige over thrun main, and thats a little better against jund but a lot worse against jeskai.

Hi congrats on your fine finish!

Just like to know how you board against decks like humans, mainly what you would cut in exchange for removal etc.

@askrzypczak: I'd love to know more about your mulligan philosophy. I know that speed is critical with the deck, but when it comes to getting the right balance of lands, explosive mana development, and high impact threats, I'm having consistency issues, and I think some insight into how you look at whether to keep or throw back a hand would help a lot. This deck is actually probably the hardest one I've ever picked up for evaluating starting hands.

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My mulligan decisions are very basic. Generally, if there is a turn 1 ramp spell, I will keep it.

exceptions:
1. entire hand is 1 cmc ramp and lands
2. 2 lands and 1 dork, and rest of cards have cmc 5 and up
3. 1 land, and only 2 1cmc cards.


It is not that common to have the turn 3 craterhoof win, but it is very common to be able to present a lethal goldfish combat damage total on turn 6.
A good metric for whether you should keep the hand is whether you attack for a cumulative total of 20 damage on your 6th turn.

The power of green is that our 'faliure' hands always provide proactive pressure. If both you and tron have 'failure' hands, you will win just because you have a pile of 2/2s and 3/3s that turn sideways. This is why i avoid cards like selkie and elvish visionary. All the cards I play that are not 1cmc mana dorks are able to stand on their own without nykthos. If you remove nykthos from the deck, you get a bad aggro deck. But a bad aggro deck is the failure case, and that is a lot better than most other combo decks in modern.

Generally, I just accept that a percentage of my keeps will end up in horrible losses. I do not try to mulligan into the god hands. Instead, I follow a deck construction philosophy that says I am not an all-in combo deck, and that my combo starts and ends with pact, bte, hoof, hornet queen, and nykthos. Every other card has to produce 2 devotion or put a card into my hand, be resilient to removal, and just be a good card that synergies with the idea of a medium aggro deck that tries to go wide. As long as it has 2 devotion, the concession to playing nykthos is done.

This is why i do not play selkie. If a card is not good without nykthos on the battlefield, then it is not worth playing.

Quote from askrzypczak »

My mulligan decisions are very basic. Generally, if there is a turn 1 ramp spell, I will keep it.

exceptions:
1. entire hand is 1 cmc ramp and lands
2. 2 lands and 1 dork, and rest of cards have cmc 5 and up
3. 1 land, and only 2 1cmc cards.


It is not that common to have the turn 3 craterhoof win, but it is very common to be able to present a lethal goldfish combat damage total on turn 6.
A good metric for whether you should keep the hand is whether you attack for a cumulative total of 20 damage on your 6th turn.

The power of green is that our 'faliure' hands always provide proactive pressure. If both you and tron have 'failure' hands, you will win just because you have a pile of 2/2s and 3/3s that turn sideways. This is why i avoid cards like selkie and elvish visionary. All the cards I play that are not 1cmc mana dorks are able to stand on their own without nykthos. If you remove nykthos from the deck, you get a bad aggro deck. But a bad aggro deck is the failure case, and that is a lot better than most other combo decks in modern.

Generally, I just accept that a percentage of my keeps will end up in horrible losses. I do not try to mulligan into the god hands. Instead, I follow a deck construction philosophy that says I am not an all-in combo deck, and that my combo starts and ends with pact, bte, hoof, hornet queen, and nykthos. Every other card has to produce 2 devotion or put a card into my hand, be resilient to removal, and just be a good card that synergies with the idea of a medium aggro deck that tries to go wide. As long as it has 2 devotion, the concession to playing nykthos is done.

This is why i do not play selkie. If a card is not good without nykthos on the battlefield, then it is not worth playing.

Great wisdom here. Thanks for letting us inside your mind

Quote from askrzypczak »

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Quote from Deruvid »

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I concur. Thanks @askrzypczak; this was really helpful.

@askrzypczak,

I like your philosphy. I'm also a fan of the 3x Nissa, I have her in the Ponza list I've been on for a while now and she is sooo much better than she looks at face value.

I'm interested in whether you've considered Jadelight Ranger, or what your reason for excluding her was?

Quote from Ulka »

Craterhoof behemoth is one I have considered a bunch but I'e cut mine a while back for Ballista as I found the Ballista +kessig outs were typically more stable than the hoof who is more explosive. I might try hoof again espically if I go back to BurningTree but until I do i feel teh hoof isnt as strong as ballista but again thats just from my meta which has a lot of lantern and tezzereator.


On jeskai: I think jeskai is one of our easier matchups but it might be that i have lots of expreience with the deck as I play against it almost weekly.
Thrun is unkillable against the standard list so long as you keep regeneration mana up. This makes the deck almost an auto win for us if we get postboard games. The big thing I find with Jeskai is that you need to learn to make it look like our meh drop is our payoff. Some of this Is psychology in facking tells (yea Im that kid) or just making some trades/ counters seem more profitable. in the jeskai matchup i will offer up primetimes for terade a lot to protect rhuric, huntmasters or thrun.

thats my other note: Run huntmasters. Hunts overwhelms most boards and unless you are going all in on the TaN combo or the Pact explosive deck i feel Huntmanster is a needed 2 in the 75. This might just be a pet card what plays to my love of tempo but he forces unfavorable trades in removal amounts and we almost always net positive with him.

thats my random thoughts

I raelly like the idea of Huntmaster...funnily enough...it is not a card that has seen a ton of play in all of Devotion's history That's why I love MTG Salvation!

Regarding jadelight ranger, I have not actually tested her yet. But trying to play 3 courser and 3 nissa has told me that I do not actually want that many 3 drops. I would prefer to play more 1 drops on turn 2, and have a more explosive turn 3. Its also better this way when you get your elf bolted turn 1. But yes, jadelight is probably just 2nd to nissa in terms of playability in my list.

I agree completely. I tend to play less three drops than most (I like 1- and 2-drops due to the sequencing I've found playing them historically). There are a lot of meta's where spending an entire turn casting a 3-drop creature only to have it pathed, bolted (although really your 3-drop should have 4+ toughness...it's part of the reason I moved away from Selkie)

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The minimal testing I've done with Vivien Reid thus far has been really promising. This, however, is in the context of a Planeswalker-Heavy build (built to focus on walkers). Between Walking Ballista, Vivien Reid, Acidic Slime, Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruins, and Engineered Explosives (and a few others...didn't want the list to drag on); this is the first time I feel comfortable truly considering a very-near Mono-Green Walker list.

Current Testing List (will see some changes):





Obviously it is up in the air. I have gone back and forth between Courser of Kruphix and Carven Caryatid...just velocity vs. ability to attack and long-game potential.
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Random Fun Idea:

Gigantosaurus + Garruk, Primal Hunter = Draw 10 with 8 Devotion.

Has anyone else tried Eldritch Evolution? It was amazingly strong when I played it before...but I stopped when I thought Control was becoming a large part of the meta (as sacrificing a creature only to have the spell countered scared me....) Just wondering if anyone else had tried it in the past.

guys in my thoughts on Vorapede I forgot Kodama of the North Tree is a card.

What are people's thoughts?

@maxivz

Did you by chance play against Reid Duke recently? In his latest Jund video he played something eerily similar to what you have above haha.

Hmmm, so this is mostly meant for @CurdBros because I'm not sure if anhyone besides us here plays much Planeswalker Devotion, but Vivien of the Arkbow seems like it could be great. Her +2 is great with Ballista and Finks and her minus is also great, any planeswalker that can kill something the turn it enters has a lot of potential.

A bit expensive though, so that makes it probably just worse than Ajani, Mentor.

@maxivz
It's around the 11 min mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn3f3L4Z4bc&t=1245s

@Curdbros

I am a little late to the party, but I cast my first genesis hydra at FNM last night.

Was unconvinced earlier, but the card is quite good

Quote from Rendroc »

Hmmm, so this is mostly meant for @CurdBros because I'm not sure if anhyone besides us here plays much Planeswalker Devotion, but Vivien of the Arkbow seems like it could be great. Her +2 is great with Ballista and Finks and her minus is also great, any planeswalker that can kill something the turn it enters has a lot of potential.

A bit expensive though, so that makes it probably just worse than Ajani, Mentor.

I thought the same thing. I’ve been toying with playing Domri Rade in my list (given its synergy with Courser, it’s low CMC, and giving me “Creature Removal”) but she’s not half bad..pretty much solely because of the Ballista/Finks synergies (on top of giving the deck a “better than fight” ability when it needs it).

I do like the idea that your creature isn’t dealt damage (as you don’t ever have to trade creatures). I’m really liking that Vivien takes advantage of Green’s removal potential. None of it it spectacular; but when it it one option on a Walker they become really good.

In reality, she still likely doesn’t make the cut (you can get a LOT for 6-mana); but I did take some time thinking of trying her.

I’m just waiting for the Planeswalker that either has a Fling or Thud effect...or I guess it could be life loss too (would likely be a Black Planeswalker at that point rather than red; but I’ll make do ) best possible scenario would be a Grull Walker with Blood hooked to it.