MTG Salvation

I've spent a few months building a truly competitive Derevi deck. They're very hard to build correctly because they depend on swarm-to-swarm. That is, you play out a swarm which generates mana and cards to keep building your swarm. Along the way, you play some global effects that you hope hit you asymmetrically. In particular, you punish dependence on untapping extra lands or ramping via artifacts. Archenemy is impractical in 4+ player EDH, so you can't depend on winning by playing an aggro control role. At some point, you're forced into combo role to actually finish off the table. You can make enemies IRL by focusing squarely on one player at a time to make Archenemy more practical, but it still doesn't actually work very well.

In practice, you want aggro-combo with ramp suppression to keep your micro-threats relevant. The key is that you don't actually have to play the control role, you just need to keep your opponents out of the combo role while you win. You're the beatdown. The deck is designed around that. We punish ramp from lands and artifacts while turning utility creatures sideways. Creatures to damage to mana and cards to more creatures. Sweepers disrupt that plan, so you run low CMC countermagic to prevent that.

Mistakes your Derevi build probably makes:

• Playing a control role.
• Leaving out artifact ramp suppression.
• Focusing too much on swarm size over swarm threat quality
• Depending on significantly outdrawing your opponents.

Most recent build:


The best cards that didn't make it:



Changelog:

Knight of the Reliquary was pretty underwhelming -> Linvala, Keeper of Silence.

Pretty sure the permission suite needs work, too. Swan Song might need to be included. Not sure what to cut, though.

Hey, I'm interested in updates if you have the time and have gotten to get some games in. I am also looking to turn my casual Derevi deck into a prisom deck similar to this list and Swift's list. He does not run the MLD theme that I want to try, so I am very interested in how this is working for you. Any thoughts on the possibility of Karametra? I feel the list would have to be catered towards him a bit, but it's food for thought. Same with Ephara, as alternate casting Derevi actually triggers her ability.

-meekstone rules in derevi, especially against wanderer. Retribution of the meek is also snaztacular.
-why are you running mass land removal instead of focusing on the big 3? (winter orb/hokori/rising waters) Derevi has amazing synergy with the latter, less so with the former.
-where's your evasive weenies to actually get value out of derevi? you're not even running serra ascendant! You're trying to blow up all lands but you also have a high curve? This makes no sense.

I've made a lot of changes since the first build. I'll update shortly.

Any idea what you are trading Primordial for here?

I kinda like Frost Titan, but still thinking on it.

..

Derevi is a hard deck to build. I've written about this elsewhere, but basically you have to swarm-to-control. Swarm -> cards+mana -> swarm -> repeat. But you're playing archenemy with a slow kill. The only real combo kill at your disposal is Spike Feeder+Archangel of Thune for infi-pump and infi-life. In principle, there's another kill: Derevi + Stasis + vigilance/double strike/Geist of St. Traft. The problem is that this leaves you with minimal threat density: only your Coastal Piracy and Stasis effects really matter.

I'm rebuilding right now and I'm at 107 cards. Sorry in advance about the careless sorting. Not putting in too much effort until I have this thing up and working.

Wouldn't Swan Song be almost 100% better than Envelop?

Quote from MrCoupon

Wouldn't Swan Song be almost 100% better than Envelop?

I was thinking that too.

Does this beat your Maelstrom?

..

Swan Song makes blockers, but yes, that's defensible. Rebuff the Wicked and Turn Aside might also be good inclusions.

The list at the top turns my Maelstrom build into a joke, but loses to Animar/Krenko/etc. There are no wrong threats, but plenty of wrong answers.

Top post updated with a solid list. Energy Flux wins games. So many decks just scoop to it, particulary after emptying their hand with artifact ramp.

Tested and played out brutally, even against two Esper decks. I'll update the top post's text tonight. The list is amazingly tight. Strongly suggest this route (particularly the combo closer, including Fabricate, and Energy Flux) to all Derevi players.

How do you like this in comparison to your Wanderer deck?

I'm feeling like Wanderer isn't as fun/doesn't have enough interaction and I'm itching to try something else.

I honestly believe that Wanderer gives you the most opportunities to outplay your opponents...if they aren't on awful deck. Then it's more like an oops-I-won HULK SMASH!!!! with very little thought or reason. Derevi tends to stop your opponents from winning, so it looks more interactive. But really it's more of an autopilot deck. You stop your opponents from playing rather than figuring out how to play around them. Krenko can also be fun, but it's much more autopilot than Wanderer and offers way fewer meaningful in-game choices.

^^This. A number of the kids at the local shop always ask to borrow my Wanderer deck to go smash their unsuspecting friends. I always have to ask why, because smashing decks that stand no chance is just as masturbatory as, well, masturbation; just without the fun at the end. But when pitted against other high level decks, Wanderer is soooo much fun to try to create that one opening you need to win.

In my experience, the playskill that Maelstrom Wanderer rewards is philosophical skill, rather than the ability to play the board. It's incredibly mentally interactive, even if a lot of the cards are not as directly interactive with your opponents. Just a different type of skill.

As for my Derevi deck, it is far less janky than when I started working on it, but since it is not one of the decks I am putting real money into, it will always be a cut below Wanderer/Jenara/Thada, and kinda Chainer. The issue I have been having recently, is simply that it is so unfun to play against, it sometimes saps the fun out of my own victories. In half the games I end up rooting against myself. Derevi is definitely the bad guy. Mine is still doing MLD, though, whereas you seem to have dropped it, Duck. It has been working well for me, but in a less competitive environment. It begs the question, though: "Why play a prison deck in a more casual environment?"

I love your list, it looks great!

I am not going to lie, I break your cardinal rules...I play Derevi Voltron attrition, lots of counterspells, and I don't actually play swarm. I take advantage cheap counterspells to protect Derevi and to lock out players while Derevi puts on the gear. With that being said, my decision was likely because my meta is plagued with two decks which demand a control player: Kozelik Eldrazi Rampy Ramp and Jeleva, player of obscene time spells. I find it really enjoyable to just slowly whittle the board away with counters and draw while Derevi locks down and the Winter Orb type spells go to work.

Gotta love that 4 cost flash ability. I run lots of wipes, then flash in Derevi if I have the mana. Even if I don't, I like having a commander in blue, that has evasion and no commander tax.


Just curious - what is the role of Reconnaissance?

Reconnaissance untaps our attacking creatures. This is quite useful in a Derevi stax build

I don't understand how it works, though. It untaps them, but then why tap them to attack in the first place, since the damage doesn't happen anyway?

Recon allows creatures like Giest to attack and make the 4/4 angel, without the draw back of being killed by a powerful blocker.

Declare the attack, use recon on anything being blocked that might die. Anything that gets through uses Derevi's ability to tap a permanent.

Mix in Winter Orb and Meekstone, you have a party.


..

Reconnaissance also works like functional vigilance, you can activate after damage to untap. And of course you wait until they've declared blockers before untapping them, so you only keep the fights you can win. So it's like gustcloak savior meets serra's blessing basically.

Trinket Mage -> Coastal Piracy. Skullclamp is strong, but not worth a dedicated tutor. Might add Batterskull just for the lifelink and vigilance.

Land Equilibrium -> Batterskull. People target it even when it's actually helping them. Also, it really comes down too late to be effective.

Just like Maelstrom, this deck is so "oppressive" against poorly prepared opponents that it wins about 75% of 4 player games.

Minor update: Misdirection -> Swan Song. Spare blue cards in hand usually mean you're already winning. FoW is so solid that it's worth it, but we tend to fear sweepers, not instant-speed targeted removal.

Not clear to me what counterspell priority is. Thoughts?

• Envelop
• Swan Song
• Condescend
• Negate
• Spell Pierce
• Mana Leak
• Counterspell
• Muddle the Mixture
• Forbid
• Misdirection
• Delay
• Daze
• Judge's Familiar
• Spiketail Hatchling
• Patron Wizard
• Mother of Runes
• Devoted Caretaker

Mana Drain > all of those. At the moment, I'm thinking that if we have two slots, they should go to Counterspell and Patron Wizard. Thoughts?

Quote from ambivalentduck

Not clear to me what counterspell priority is. Thoughts?

• Envelop
• Swan Song
• Negate
• Spell Pierce
• Mana Leak
• Counterspell
• Misdirection
• Delay
• Daze
• Judge's Familiar
• Spiketail Hatchling
• Patron Wizard
• Mother of Runes
• Devoted Caretaker

Mana Drain > all of those. At the moment, I'm thinking that if we have two slots, they should go to Counterspell and Patron Wizard. Thoughts?

Hi there. I don't play Derevi at all, but I like competitive decks, and your list looks pretty good to me. Anyway, in my opinion, if you only have two slots for counters (not including Mana Drain, which is obviously awesome if you can afford it), I would run Counterspell and Negate, since Negate seems the least conditional of your conditional counters on your list. Since you're the beat down, Negate should stop most of what you care about, and will also help you win the counter war. Would Deprive be any good with Derevi? At least it's a hard-counter. Remand is pretty good too.

Mana Drain and FoW are both in my list at present and I don't think anything offers meaningful competition for their slots.

UU isn't hard to manage, so the fact that Counterspell is a hard counter and not conditional pushes it to the top of the list.

The problem with Negate is that sometimes you need to counter an Elesh Norn/Crater Helion/Goblin Sharpshooter. The problem with Remand is that you're seldom stopping a Tooth and Nail (thanks Winter Orb effects!), you're usually stopping 3-5 CMC targeted removal and sweepers. I'm not very certain of exactly how good Patron Wizard is, but I suspect it fills in both. It both pushes removal back a turn (or more!) and stops critters.

If Patron Wizard doesn't pan out, I think you're on the right track with Negate and Deprive. And I think Negate has a slight edge in that comparison because Derevi can be fairly mana hungry. Forbid is also an option since it can be oppressive after one of the draw engines comes online.

I didn't think to include it in the original list, but Muddle the Mixture might have a place on the grounds that we really like tutoring for Stasis and our 2cmc critters.