I would like to start thinking about this archetype and move it a little big forward on what it can really do. First few things that I'm pretty sure we all agree on is the fact that Nykthos is a pretty busted card if it's start generating Mana. The only big issue with the deck is that there is no middle ground, half the deck is devotion or ramp creature and the remaining is land with few bombs. I've been recently tinkering about playing Nykthos more down to earth and maybe start incorporating support spells and more main deck interaction.All in all, Nykthos only need 4 devotion to profit after that do we really need something more than a land that can tap for 2?
If we take the case of Eldrazi one of the main strength of their deck is their ability to use a 2 mana producing land. Where I'm going right now with this is that while we could technically rush our devotion we could also slowly get Nykthos to produce 2 mana via interaction and tempo based action and eventually the tempo advantage of Nykthos producing 1 extra mana could overrun a game in our favor.
Weirdly enough a form of Hexproof Creature + Aura backed with permission spell could be viable with nykthos, we would still retain mono G:
The picture showcase my first playtest, getting that sweet 4 Devotion turn 3 enabling me to have Bear Umbra turning my Hexproof creature into a 5/3 Trample + Draw a card if I deal damage with opponent + I untap all my land and is backed up with a Totem Armor.
I just want to point out that this list is untested and I just made it really quickly as a proof of concept.
Edit: To be honest I don't understand how Bogle player could enjoy playing such a deck.. it's on autopilot, while it's great and with correct numbers could be a solid tier 1.5 deck I will quit experimenting with the idea but I'll leave the idea for everyone to see if someone like the idea.I prefer to have decision to make rather than going full no brain.
but Bear Umbra could be added to some version for extra spice.
If I may, a 5/3 Trample turn 3 is not really impressive for a Bogle deck. You chose the one deck which doesn't need mana ramp and doesn't want a land that taps for colorless during the first 2 turns of the game ^^
I like Bogles. It's linear but in essence most decks are. I wouldn't play it all the time, but it feels good to hose the grindiest decks of the format. It's at least a deck that has a personality, in my opinion.
Last Wednesday in a small tournament (25 players) I played green devotion with a splash of blue for Gifts Ungiven. The goal is to fetch a finisher, often Elesh Norn, and Unburial Rites. It's a deck Corbyn Hosler showcased in its mining modern serie. It felt really good, although it often got harder post sideboard against some graveyard hate. I could still play value-Gifts and hardcast my beasts but it was less smooth.
I went 3-1 in the end
I'll maybe change the deck so that it's less graveyard dependant. Or have a transformative sideboard to let go of the combo and have the opponent lose some slots. But I'd like to continue playing Elesh Norn and Iona, I think I fell in love <3
Boggles does not have a massive variety in play-style, but it does have variety in the deck construction, is powerful, and simply wins many match-ups. If you can't conceive how a deck is fun, there is probably some aspect you're not focusing on.
For those of you who may not know, my first foray into Devotion was a Green Stompy Aggro with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Genesis Wave. Eventually, I realized the decks were quite different, and separated them. But seeing as how Damping Sphere threatens Nykthos, I decided to take a step back and look at the other side of that old deck, focusing on another Devotion card: Aspect of Hydra. I had good results.
It turns out that AoH can still regularly generate turn-4 kills, and that cheap 4-power creatures can compete with most of the stuff on the field other than a late Death's Shadow. Playing MD Scavenging Ooze is great against so many decks, and Steel Leaf Champion might help as well.
Now, I'm not going to post a list because I consider this a bit far afield from the real focus of Nykthos (and the deck wouldn't benefit from it either--sometimes you need to use three Forests to cast Leatherback Baloth after a Wrath of God). However, it was refreshing, highlighted some things we're good at even without Nykthos, and gave me some food for thought.
I'll likely follow this up with another post on the impact of Damping Sphere.
Analysis of Damping Sphere for Green Nykthos Decks
Damping Sphere is one of the most flexible and powerful anti-strategy cards ever printed. It has value against various decks that accelerate using lands that add 2+ mana per tap, or decks that rely on playing a large volume of spells in a single turn.
1. The presence of this card will almost certainly be high. It will vary primarily in response to the perceived threat level of Tron and Storm decks, but it also has utility against other high-volume decks (especially on the play) such as Bushwacker Zoo, Affinity, and even Burn and Delver.
2. As a consequence, the format is going to shift to favor control much more heavily. Expect UWx variants to be the strongest thing going. Aggro control will also be prominent.
3. Our explosive openings are substantially diminished, especially on the draw. Nykthos being disabled is the obvious problem. BTE chains still had utility with Garruk overruns, but those are substantially impacted as well. The same is true for the Elf-Sprawl-4caster play.
4. Unlike Tron, we still have the potential to play things ahead of schedule in the face of Damping Sphere, due to Utopia Sprawl, Arbor Elf, and Garruk WS. This may not necessarily be a 6-caster on turn 3, but it can still be very powerful.
5. Lethal overruns on turn 4 are a lot less likely, but can still happen.
6. Tutors like Summoner's Pact, Primal Command, and Traverse the Ulvenwald are somewhat impacted.
7. Variable spells are likely to be less powerful, because the chance to get 10+ mana in a turn has dropped off dramatically.
This analysis is helpful for giving us some future direction, and also for overcoming The Fear.
While you're on the Topic of Sphere, assuming it becomes a mainstay in the format (which it probably will) and the menace of UW/UWR Control rises even more it looks like that we have 3 options going forward:
And in General we're not getting hosed as hard as Tron thanks to Enchants producing Mana, not the Lands (except Nykthos). We're still somewhat functional as a Deck even without Nykthos on the field.
Boggles does not have a massive variety in play-style, but it does have variety in the deck construction, is powerful, and simply wins many match-ups. If you can't conceive how a deck is fun, there is probably some aspect you're not focusing on.
For those of you who may not know, my first foray into Devotion was a Green Stompy Aggro with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Genesis Wave. Eventually, I realized the decks were quite different, and separated them. But seeing as how Damping Sphere threatens Nykthos, I decided to take a step back and look at the other side of that old deck, focusing on another Devotion card: Aspect of Hydra. I had good results.
It turns out that AoH can still regularly generate turn-4 kills, and that cheap 4-power creatures can compete with most of the stuff on the field other than a late Death's Shadow. Playing MD Scavenging Ooze is great against so many decks, and Steel Leaf Champion might help as well.
Now, I'm not going to post a list because I consider this a bit far afield from the real focus of Nykthos (and the deck wouldn't benefit from it either--sometimes you need to use three Forests to cast Leatherback Baloth after a Wrath of God). However, it was refreshing, highlighted some things we're good at even without Nykthos, and gave me some food for thought.
I'll likely follow this up with another post on the impact of Damping Sphere.
^^^This
I have been focused for some time on taking advantage of Devotion outside of the more straight-forward ramp builds. First....there is NOTHING wrong with the more straightforward ramp builds...if we’ve learned anything in Modern it is that linear, one-purpose decks can always win.
I recently posted a Company deck and talked about how Stompy Devotion could absolutely be a thing again (as it was a few years back)...the only problem is that the “Stompy” Primer has decided that Devotion falls within their Primer. I don’t want to take from them or get in some form of “turf war” over a deck just because a card was printed that helps both of us...but i do think that because DEVOTION plays a major role in the card/archetype that we can and should be able to talk about it/brew it here (even if they end up being very close deck lists). I don’t think it’s the end of the world for two Primers to play similar cards; and I do think a card built on Devotion is something we should be able to discuss.
I'm not a brewer myself, so I'll see where y'all are going ^^
I'm ready to let go of my UG Devotion Gifts since it now gets rekted from both graveyard hate and the damping sphere. That's probably too much hate all around and I should reduce my wind surface area.
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French Commander : Yisan Liliana Kytheon Kari Zev Grenzo Karlov Tajic Gitrog Prossh Turboramp Najeela Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro Legacy : Goblins
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. The only other thing I'd add is that land destruction effects may become less prevalent as they are replaced with Damping Sphere or the prevalence of what they are mostly used to counter (Tron) diminishes. This opens up a few options. The land enchantments you mentioned are certainly viable. Another point is that Kessig Wolf Run and Treetop Villages will likely be answered less. Primeval Titan fetching double Treetops was an old favorite of mine, and still works.
One interesting thing is that Valakut-based decks are not especially countered by Damping Sphere. I'm not sure what that means for us or the overall meta.
I think this is something that we may need to address with the mods. Deck threads need to exist to make discussions manageable, thus some divisions need to exist. I think it makes sense to either discuss Devotion as being:
(1) Centered on certain cards (ie: you must have Nykthos, Garruk WS, Utopia Sprawl, and Arbor Elf to qualify) and/or
(2) Centered on a certain playstyle (big mana, multiple attack angles, etc.).
I don't think turf wars help anyone, as they are excessively negative. And I think it's fine for a bit of cross-discussion to exist, as this is fertile ground for innovation. But I generally feel some division is necessary, if only to keep focus.
If it were up to me, I'd put Green Stompy in one thread, TnN in another, and dynamic Nykthos decks in a third. Stompy decks largely focus on the question of getting enough big creatures and damage, which means the mana core is secondary. TnN focuses on resolving the namesake spell and go at it multiple ways, so the mana core is secondary (even if it may share some cards with us). But all of the other Nykthos builds focus on actualizing the same mana core, and largely exist on a gradient, and thus form their own category.
A great comparison is Eldrazi-Tron versus Big-Tron. Both share at least 16 cards which are not non-basic lands. Yet they are clearly distinct enough in how they operate to warrant different builds, discussions, and thus threads.
Splashes are cool, but generally since we only need one mana of the requesite type and need it early, we can get there easily with other means: Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl, and Fetchlands + Shocklands generally do the job. If your splash is a planeswalker, Oath of Nissa counts too.
I’m not a big fan of forcing qualifiers on people to post (I.e. there could be a Devotion deck that doesn’t play Garruk or even Arbor elf but still focuses on the Devotion mechanic); but I do agree that a reasonable split is a good thing. I believe the Stompy community calls their devotion list “Mono Green Stompy” so we can point people their way if a list appears to just be splashing” Devotion. My only thought was if you are playing Nykthos and Aspect...that’s two different cards focused on the Devotion mechanic. We may have to just be ok having some posts here about it and also letting players know there is a Dedicated Stompy forum.
The Tooth and Nail discussion came up in the past too and we kind of handled it similarly (letting people know that a dedicated forum was available for those not focusing on Devotion). I believe the problem at the time was that one thread was not very active. Regardless; I can discuss this with the mods
On Boggles Devotion:
Using Nykthos as a low-to-the-ground ramp option like Eldrazi Temple is not what the land wants to be doing. Especially in a deck that runs a lower land count, reducing the amount of colored-mana producing lands to fit in Nykthos is very harmful. You don't want a lot of colorless lands and no ramp payoff. At that point you're better off playing normal dorks to ramp you, in my opinon.
On Damping Sphere:
I hate how good this card is. If adopted, it will make draw-go control a lot more prevalent. I would expect an increase in the amount of board wipes and cryptic commands for sure. To play around this, I would consider Genesis Hydra into Planeswalkers as a viable path of attack. Assuming an increase in boardwipes, we definitely don't want to be playing to the board, and Planeswalkers are a lot harder to interact with. That being said, if a Sphere is already out, Nykthos is not an option. This leads me to believe that the traditional ramp strategy of T&N could be a good starting point...especially since the LD of choice nowadays is Field of Ruin and not Ghost Quarter.
On Stompy Devotion:
I do like the look of this archetype with the Steel Leaf Champion. Aspect of Hydra is an insane spell as well. It might be time to start playing around with this to see how it goes
Nykthos do not need to produce more than 4 mana, It's not hurting the deck and Boggle was only 1 way of showcasting the idea.
As stated Damping Sphere hurt Nykthos in a way that playing over the top 10 mana card is dead, it's over. The only way to really play Nykthos in the futur is by not focusing so much on it. By only looking to generate 4 Mana with Nykthos the deck isn't hurted so much if they Damping Sphere or Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge or Field of Ruin or Crumble to Dust or UR Ponza or Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon or Fulminator Mage. I feel that you guys are blinded by huge creature and it's the main reason I've quitted helping this thread only to comeback about 2-3 years later and you still playing the exact version we settle on once I left.
Now, if we build a deck that can generate 4 Mana with nykthos as I stated in my last post, it's easy to do with various Decklist the main point was 4 Mana Nykthos is good.
I believe our goal should be closer to generating 6 Mana on turn 4 for a Woodland Bellower or Primeval Titan pay off.This way we are not hindered by NOT 1 card but more than 10 cards that are currently being run.
Stompy Green or Zoo is the way to go, There was some issue with Aspect of Hydra back then not sure if it's good enough for today, but I guess Aspect of Hydra isn't so far from Banefire. The main issue was the lack of Trample.
Edit: Various 2 mana destroy or Anger of the gods and wrath also hit devotion hard and it's one of the reason I went with Boggle since with Totem armor your devotion is protected.
Also you guys are playing Nykthos like it have potential to be better than GTron, it's impossible. Quit being a bunch of Timmy and realise that Either you play Nykthos for 4 Mana either you play Tron.
I’m not a big fan of forcing qualifiers on people to post (I.e. there could be a Devotion deck that doesn’t play Garruk or even Arbor elf but still focuses on the Devotion mechanic); but I do agree that a reasonable split is a good thing. I believe the Stompy community calls their devotion list “Mono Green Stompy” so we can point people their way if a list appears to just be splashing” Devotion. My only thought was if you are playing Nykthos and Aspect...that’s two different cards focused on the Devotion mechanic. We may have to just be ok having some posts here about it and also letting players know there is a Dedicated Stompy forum.
The Tooth and Nail discussion came up in the past too and we kind of handled it similarly (letting people know that a dedicated forum was available for those not focusing on Devotion). I believe the problem at the time was that one thread was not very active. Regardless; I can discuss this with the mods
Ultimately, I think it's your call. I'll be honest: I don't pay much attention to Stompe or TnN posts in this thread, because I consider them something else. Is it useful to have everything in one place, even if that means some people are ignoring a bunch? It's debatable.
On Boggles Devotion:
Using Nykthos as a low-to-the-ground ramp option like Eldrazi Temple is not what the land wants to be doing. Especially in a deck that runs a lower land count, reducing the amount of colored-mana producing lands to fit in Nykthos is very harmful. You don't want a lot of colorless lands and no ramp payoff. At that point you're better off playing normal dorks to ramp you, in my opinon.
On Damping Sphere:
I hate how good this card is. If adopted, it will make draw-go control a lot more prevalent. I would expect an increase in the amount of board wipes and cryptic commands for sure. To play around this, I would consider Genesis Hydra into Planeswalkers as a viable path of attack. Assuming an increase in boardwipes, we definitely don't want to be playing to the board, and Planeswalkers are a lot harder to interact with. That being said, if a Sphere is already out, Nykthos is not an option. This leads me to believe that the traditional ramp strategy of T&N could be a good starting point...especially since the LD of choice nowadays is Field of Ruin and not Ghost Quarter.
On Stompy Devotion:
I do like the look of this archetype with the Steel Leaf Champion. Aspect of Hydra is an insane spell as well. It might be time to start playing around with this to see how it goes
Yeah, I definitely tried to use Nykthos to add more power in a low-to-the-ground aggro deck. It was wasted there. That's why I split the decks. So I agree with that.
Hydra and PWs is certainly another possibility. Myself, I see a lot more Carnage Tyrants in my future.
As for Stompy, well... I'll put my decklist in spoiler tags for those who actually care to read it.
This thing is surprisingly robust, powering out creatures that are every bit as dangerous as Eldrazi and having a fair amount of staying power. Turn 3 power-hits with AoH frequently knock off half the opponent's life. Steel Leaf Champion would probably come in as a 3x, or maybe a 4x (depending on my concern for Meddling Mage). I'm not sure what it would displace. Damping Sphere would definitely come into the SB, probably displacing Spyglass.
Anything more than that I should probably be discussing elsewhere.
Let me make it clear. Currently, you can do things like:
Turn 1: Arbor Elf.
Turn 2: Cast Utopia Sprawl, tap for 2, untap land with Arbor Elf, tap for 2, cast Garruk, untap both lands with Garruk, tap for 3, cast Courser/Nissa VoZ/Finks etc...
This won't work under Damping Sphere due to the cost-increasing effect: even though Utopia Sprawl still works, you would only be able to follow up with a 3-mana spell or less. That's much weaker than the 4- to 7-mana worth of spells you can currently.
Let me make it clear to you, This line of play will happen once in 4 Round.
This deck is dead.
This deck died 1 Month after the local knew about Genesis Wave.
Either you play 4 mana Nykthos either you play Gtron.
Special thanks also to BaddBusiness, Walk, and Lucidcheeta for the first Green Devotion Primer (prior to GnuHouse's oversight).
I made this deck with those guys, trying to say I don't know how the deck work is madness, I had built this deck before the original primer existed.
You bringing the line I placed into this deck saying I don't know it existed?
Damping Sphere does counter this Line but this Line never Happened except once in 4 rounds.
The reason for Utopia Sprawl is that it's a hard to remove Mana Dork, then Arbor Elf over Bird because it can combo with Utopia Sprawl but the deck can't be built to always have this line turn 2 happen.
This will be the last time I post in this thread, it's a tier 3 deck at best.
Like I said before this deck was only good because it was unknown. Now you either play green with an Eldrazi Temple or don't play Nykthos. If you guys are looking for a better deck, go play UR Ponza for a similar feel.
Sphere increases Mana Cost for the followup play to Sprawl. Sprawl is Mana Neutral with sphere on the board
I do understand that, but it do not cancel the mana of Utopia Sprawl it's not like the deck won't run Utopia Sprawl because of damping sphere.
Also if you build your deck correctly and not like a Timmy you should be aiming at doing a 3 Drop on turn 2, and damping sphere do not hurt this play.
Also I feel like Damping Sphere is quite overpowered, it can shut down nearly every single deck for the second effect is the one that is quite back breaking against most of the cast looking to play innexpensive spells, I feel like Legacy and Vintage will also get hit pretty hard by Damping Sphere.
While it was revealed to be true I hope Damping Sphere gets banned otherwise it will create a massive metashift, It destroy combo deck, destroy ramp deck and even hit deck like Zoo. Having a card being good against every axis can't be healthy.
@Walk
You say that we are blinded by producing 10+ mana, and that's just incorrect. If you want to go on about how the deck is dead and we're deluding ourselves, feel free to leave the thread, we don't need that here.
Now if you want to discuss how to make a midrange deck to combat Sphere, then we can talk about that further. Here are a few thoughts I have about bringing down the curve:
1) To get 4 cmc out of Nykthos, you're most likely looking at a Utopia Sprawl, 1GG creature, and another (X)G creature. This speaks to a beatdown plan (ex. Stompy).
2) To make it more successful, you need interaction in other colors. This means that we need enough in the landbase to support activating Nykthos as well as hold up interaction. 21x lands is not enough in this case, as many times we are operating on 3-4 lands, 2 of which are used for activating Nykthos. We would need to bump up the landcount to ~24 lands to accomodate 4x Nykthos.
3) Another option - have a 1-of Nykthos as a fetchable source, either by KOTR or Primeval Titan. This approach is less appetizing however, as what is the point in warping the deck to fetch a singleton sol land?
4) The power of Eldrazi Temple is that it can be used in multiples. We cannot play multiple Nykthos', so maxing out at (+1) mana generation for a single land is not incredibly appetizing. This is why we dream a little bigger. It doesn't have to be much.
5) There are a number of threats that fill the 4-6 cmc slot that are easily castable. I do agree that going big is not necessary in this deck (Genesis Wave, Walking Ballista, Genesis Hydra, etc), however I do think that 6 cmc is extremely reasonable. To go even lower, we've had iterations of Devotion in the past that beatdown with Boggart Ram Gang, BTE, Wolfbriar, etc. 4 CMC has a lot to work with as well.
6) Devoted Druid is a good plan against Damping Sphere. Infinite mana does not care about the tax, this variant may prove the most successful in the new metagame.
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Also depending on your list you can easily turn it into some kind of zoo deck with Burning-Tree Emissary and Strangleroot Geist.
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I would like to start thinking about this archetype and move it a little big forward on what it can really do. First few things that I'm pretty sure we all agree on is the fact that Nykthos is a pretty busted card if it's start generating Mana. The only big issue with the deck is that there is no middle ground, half the deck is devotion or ramp creature and the remaining is land with few bombs. I've been recently tinkering about playing Nykthos more down to earth and maybe start incorporating support spells and more main deck interaction.All in all, Nykthos only need 4 devotion to profit after that do we really need something more than a land that can tap for 2?
If we take the case of Eldrazi one of the main strength of their deck is their ability to use a 2 mana producing land. Where I'm going right now with this is that while we could technically rush our devotion we could also slowly get Nykthos to produce 2 mana via interaction and tempo based action and eventually the tempo advantage of Nykthos producing 1 extra mana could overrun a game in our favor.
Weirdly enough a form of Hexproof Creature + Aura backed with permission spell could be viable with nykthos, we would still retain mono G:
4 Arbor Elf
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Rancor
4 Spider Umbra
4 Bear Umbra
2 Keen Sense
2 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Slippery Bogle
4 Harmonize
4 Beast Within
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
8 Forest
The picture showcase my first playtest, getting that sweet 4 Devotion turn 3 enabling me to have Bear Umbra turning my Hexproof creature into a 5/3 Trample + Draw a card if I deal damage with opponent + I untap all my land and is backed up with a Totem Armor.
I just want to point out that this list is untested and I just made it really quickly as a proof of concept.
Edit: To be honest I don't understand how Bogle player could enjoy playing such a deck.. it's on autopilot, while it's great and with correct numbers could be a solid tier 1.5 deck I will quit experimenting with the idea but I'll leave the idea for everyone to see if someone like the idea.I prefer to have decision to make rather than going full no brain.
but Bear Umbra could be added to some version for extra spice.
I like Bogles. It's linear but in essence most decks are. I wouldn't play it all the time, but it feels good to hose the grindiest decks of the format. It's at least a deck that has a personality, in my opinion.
Last Wednesday in a small tournament (25 players) I played green devotion with a splash of blue for Gifts Ungiven. The goal is to fetch a finisher, often Elesh Norn, and Unburial Rites. It's a deck Corbyn Hosler showcased in its mining modern serie. It felt really good, although it often got harder post sideboard against some graveyard hate. I could still play value-Gifts and hardcast my beasts but it was less smooth.
I went 3-1 in the end
I'll maybe change the deck so that it's less graveyard dependant. Or have a transformative sideboard to let go of the combo and have the opponent lose some slots. But I'd like to continue playing Elesh Norn and Iona, I think I fell in love <3
Modern :
Legacy :
For those of you who may not know, my first foray into Devotion was a Green Stompy Aggro with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Genesis Wave. Eventually, I realized the decks were quite different, and separated them. But seeing as how Damping Sphere threatens Nykthos, I decided to take a step back and look at the other side of that old deck, focusing on another Devotion card: Aspect of Hydra. I had good results.
It turns out that AoH can still regularly generate turn-4 kills, and that cheap 4-power creatures can compete with most of the stuff on the field other than a late Death's Shadow. Playing MD Scavenging Ooze is great against so many decks, and Steel Leaf Champion might help as well.
Now, I'm not going to post a list because I consider this a bit far afield from the real focus of Nykthos (and the deck wouldn't benefit from it either--sometimes you need to use three Forests to cast Leatherback Baloth after a Wrath of God). However, it was refreshing, highlighted some things we're good at even without Nykthos, and gave me some food for thought.
I'll likely follow this up with another post on the impact of Damping Sphere.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
As someone who still plays Leatherback Baloth let me tell you: Genesis Hydra into Woodland Bellower into Leatherback Baloth feels pretty good
OTOH. I'm curious what you guys think about a Singleton cascading cataracts for splashes?
Damping Sphere is one of the most flexible and powerful anti-strategy cards ever printed. It has value against various decks that accelerate using lands that add 2+ mana per tap, or decks that rely on playing a large volume of spells in a single turn.
So, what does Damping Sphere mean for us?
1. The presence of this card will almost certainly be high. It will vary primarily in response to the perceived threat level of Tron and Storm decks, but it also has utility against other high-volume decks (especially on the play) such as Bushwacker Zoo, Affinity, and even Burn and Delver.
2. As a consequence, the format is going to shift to favor control much more heavily. Expect UWx variants to be the strongest thing going. Aggro control will also be prominent.
3. Our explosive openings are substantially diminished, especially on the draw. Nykthos being disabled is the obvious problem. BTE chains still had utility with Garruk overruns, but those are substantially impacted as well. The same is true for the Elf-Sprawl-4caster play.
4. Unlike Tron, we still have the potential to play things ahead of schedule in the face of Damping Sphere, due to Utopia Sprawl, Arbor Elf, and Garruk WS. This may not necessarily be a 6-caster on turn 3, but it can still be very powerful.
5. Lethal overruns on turn 4 are a lot less likely, but can still happen.
6. Tutors like Summoner's Pact, Primal Command, and Traverse the Ulvenwald are somewhat impacted.
7. Variable spells are likely to be less powerful, because the chance to get 10+ mana in a turn has dropped off dramatically.
This analysis is helpful for giving us some future direction, and also for overcoming The Fear.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
1) Continue playing like we do now with Nykthos and just go up in Primal Command/Beast Within/any of our 3 Mana "Destroy Artifact" options (Manglehorn,Reclamation Sage,Thrashing Brontodon).
2) Play with a focus on Mana Enchantments like Old T&N. Overgrowth and Fertile Ground are less vulnerable to Field of Ruin and Spreading Seas but slower and less explosive.
3) Play with Devoted Druid Combo. Devoted Druid/Vizier of Remedies does not care about Damping Sphere at all. It also is resilient against Spreading Seas and Field of Ruin but it is super vulnerable to your usual Creature Removal Suite. Bolting your Bird never hurt this much.
And in General we're not getting hosed as hard as Tron thanks to Enchants producing Mana, not the Lands (except Nykthos). We're still somewhat functional as a Deck even without Nykthos on the field.
^^^This
I have been focused for some time on taking advantage of Devotion outside of the more straight-forward ramp builds. First....there is NOTHING wrong with the more straightforward ramp builds...if we’ve learned anything in Modern it is that linear, one-purpose decks can always win.
I recently posted a Company deck and talked about how Stompy Devotion could absolutely be a thing again (as it was a few years back)...the only problem is that the “Stompy” Primer has decided that Devotion falls within their Primer. I don’t want to take from them or get in some form of “turf war” over a deck just because a card was printed that helps both of us...but i do think that because DEVOTION plays a major role in the card/archetype that we can and should be able to talk about it/brew it here (even if they end up being very close deck lists). I don’t think it’s the end of the world for two Primers to play similar cards; and I do think a card built on Devotion is something we should be able to discuss.
Ha! I used to do that with Hydra into Bellower into Wistful Selkie...I was missing out! That’s awesome.
I'm ready to let go of my UG Devotion Gifts since it now gets rekted from both graveyard hate and the damping sphere. That's probably too much hate all around and I should reduce my wind surface area.
Modern :
Legacy :
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. The only other thing I'd add is that land destruction effects may become less prevalent as they are replaced with Damping Sphere or the prevalence of what they are mostly used to counter (Tron) diminishes. This opens up a few options. The land enchantments you mentioned are certainly viable. Another point is that Kessig Wolf Run and Treetop Villages will likely be answered less. Primeval Titan fetching double Treetops was an old favorite of mine, and still works.
One interesting thing is that Valakut-based decks are not especially countered by Damping Sphere. I'm not sure what that means for us or the overall meta.
I think this is something that we may need to address with the mods. Deck threads need to exist to make discussions manageable, thus some divisions need to exist. I think it makes sense to either discuss Devotion as being:
(1) Centered on certain cards (ie: you must have Nykthos, Garruk WS, Utopia Sprawl, and Arbor Elf to qualify) and/or
(2) Centered on a certain playstyle (big mana, multiple attack angles, etc.).
I don't think turf wars help anyone, as they are excessively negative. And I think it's fine for a bit of cross-discussion to exist, as this is fertile ground for innovation. But I generally feel some division is necessary, if only to keep focus.
If it were up to me, I'd put Green Stompy in one thread, TnN in another, and dynamic Nykthos decks in a third. Stompy decks largely focus on the question of getting enough big creatures and damage, which means the mana core is secondary. TnN focuses on resolving the namesake spell and go at it multiple ways, so the mana core is secondary (even if it may share some cards with us). But all of the other Nykthos builds focus on actualizing the same mana core, and largely exist on a gradient, and thus form their own category.
A great comparison is Eldrazi-Tron versus Big-Tron. Both share at least 16 cards which are not non-basic lands. Yet they are clearly distinct enough in how they operate to warrant different builds, discussions, and thus threads.
Splashes are cool, but generally since we only need one mana of the requesite type and need it early, we can get there easily with other means: Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl, and Fetchlands + Shocklands generally do the job. If your splash is a planeswalker, Oath of Nissa counts too.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
The Tooth and Nail discussion came up in the past too and we kind of handled it similarly (letting people know that a dedicated forum was available for those not focusing on Devotion). I believe the problem at the time was that one thread was not very active. Regardless; I can discuss this with the mods
Using Nykthos as a low-to-the-ground ramp option like Eldrazi Temple is not what the land wants to be doing. Especially in a deck that runs a lower land count, reducing the amount of colored-mana producing lands to fit in Nykthos is very harmful. You don't want a lot of colorless lands and no ramp payoff. At that point you're better off playing normal dorks to ramp you, in my opinon.
On Damping Sphere:
I hate how good this card is. If adopted, it will make draw-go control a lot more prevalent. I would expect an increase in the amount of board wipes and cryptic commands for sure. To play around this, I would consider Genesis Hydra into Planeswalkers as a viable path of attack. Assuming an increase in boardwipes, we definitely don't want to be playing to the board, and Planeswalkers are a lot harder to interact with. That being said, if a Sphere is already out, Nykthos is not an option. This leads me to believe that the traditional ramp strategy of T&N could be a good starting point...especially since the LD of choice nowadays is Field of Ruin and not Ghost Quarter.
On Stompy Devotion:
I do like the look of this archetype with the Steel Leaf Champion. Aspect of Hydra is an insane spell as well. It might be time to start playing around with this to see how it goes
Utopia Sprawl isn't affected by Damping Sphere.
As stated Damping Sphere hurt Nykthos in a way that playing over the top 10 mana card is dead, it's over. The only way to really play Nykthos in the futur is by not focusing so much on it. By only looking to generate 4 Mana with Nykthos the deck isn't hurted so much if they Damping Sphere or Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge or Field of Ruin or Crumble to Dust or UR Ponza or Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon or Fulminator Mage. I feel that you guys are blinded by huge creature and it's the main reason I've quitted helping this thread only to comeback about 2-3 years later and you still playing the exact version we settle on once I left.
Now, if we build a deck that can generate 4 Mana with nykthos as I stated in my last post, it's easy to do with various Decklist the main point was 4 Mana Nykthos is good.
I believe our goal should be closer to generating 6 Mana on turn 4 for a Woodland Bellower or Primeval Titan pay off.This way we are not hindered by NOT 1 card but more than 10 cards that are currently being run.
Stompy Green or Zoo is the way to go, There was some issue with Aspect of Hydra back then not sure if it's good enough for today, but I guess Aspect of Hydra isn't so far from Banefire. The main issue was the lack of Trample.
Edit: Various 2 mana destroy or Anger of the gods and wrath also hit devotion hard and it's one of the reason I went with Boggle since with Totem armor your devotion is protected.
Also you guys are playing Nykthos like it have potential to be better than GTron, it's impossible. Quit being a bunch of Timmy and realise that Either you play Nykthos for 4 Mana either you play Tron.
Ultimately, I think it's your call. I'll be honest: I don't pay much attention to Stompe or TnN posts in this thread, because I consider them something else. Is it useful to have everything in one place, even if that means some people are ignoring a bunch? It's debatable.
Yeah, I definitely tried to use Nykthos to add more power in a low-to-the-ground aggro deck. It was wasted there. That's why I split the decks. So I agree with that.
Hydra and PWs is certainly another possibility. Myself, I see a lot more Carnage Tyrants in my future.
As for Stompy, well... I'll put my decklist in spoiler tags for those who actually care to read it.
4 Experiment One
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Leatherback Baloth
4 Rancor
Land
19 Forest
Instant
4 Aspect of Hydra
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Dismember
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Unravel the Aether
4 Feed the Clan
2 Dismember
This thing is surprisingly robust, powering out creatures that are every bit as dangerous as Eldrazi and having a fair amount of staying power. Turn 3 power-hits with AoH frequently knock off half the opponent's life. Steel Leaf Champion would probably come in as a 3x, or maybe a 4x (depending on my concern for Meddling Mage). I'm not sure what it would displace. Damping Sphere would definitely come into the SB, probably displacing Spyglass.
Anything more than that I should probably be discussing elsewhere.
Let me make it clear. Currently, you can do things like:
Turn 1: Arbor Elf.
Turn 2: Cast Utopia Sprawl, tap for 2, untap land with Arbor Elf, tap for 2, cast Garruk, untap both lands with Garruk, tap for 3, cast Courser/Nissa VoZ/Finks etc...
This won't work under Damping Sphere due to the cost-increasing effect: even though Utopia Sprawl still works, you would only be able to follow up with a 3-mana spell or less. That's much weaker than the 4- to 7-mana worth of spells you can currently.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
This deck is dead.
This deck died 1 Month after the local knew about Genesis Wave.
Either you play 4 mana Nykthos either you play Gtron.
I made this deck with those guys, trying to say I don't know how the deck work is madness, I had built this deck before the original primer existed.
You bringing the line I placed into this deck saying I don't know it existed?
Damping Sphere does counter this Line but this Line never Happened except once in 4 rounds.
The reason for Utopia Sprawl is that it's a hard to remove Mana Dork, then Arbor Elf over Bird because it can combo with Utopia Sprawl but the deck can't be built to always have this line turn 2 happen.
Also Spreading Seas destroy Utopia Sprawl + Nykthos.
This will be the last time I post in this thread, it's a tier 3 deck at best.
Like I said before this deck was only good because it was unknown. Now you either play green with an Eldrazi Temple or don't play Nykthos. If you guys are looking for a better deck, go play UR Ponza for a similar feel.
Sphere increases Mana Cost for the followup play to Sprawl. Sprawl is Mana Neutral with sphere on the board
I do understand that, but it do not cancel the mana of Utopia Sprawl it's not like the deck won't run Utopia Sprawl because of damping sphere.
Also if you build your deck correctly and not like a Timmy you should be aiming at doing a 3 Drop on turn 2, and damping sphere do not hurt this play.
Also I feel like Damping Sphere is quite overpowered, it can shut down nearly every single deck for the second effect is the one that is quite back breaking against most of the cast looking to play innexpensive spells, I feel like Legacy and Vintage will also get hit pretty hard by Damping Sphere.
While it was revealed to be true I hope Damping Sphere gets banned otherwise it will create a massive metashift, It destroy combo deck, destroy ramp deck and even hit deck like Zoo. Having a card being good against every axis can't be healthy.
I highly recommend you to buy some Seal of Primordium.
You say that we are blinded by producing 10+ mana, and that's just incorrect. If you want to go on about how the deck is dead and we're deluding ourselves, feel free to leave the thread, we don't need that here.
Now if you want to discuss how to make a midrange deck to combat Sphere, then we can talk about that further. Here are a few thoughts I have about bringing down the curve:
1) To get 4 cmc out of Nykthos, you're most likely looking at a Utopia Sprawl, 1GG creature, and another (X)G creature. This speaks to a beatdown plan (ex. Stompy).
2) To make it more successful, you need interaction in other colors. This means that we need enough in the landbase to support activating Nykthos as well as hold up interaction. 21x lands is not enough in this case, as many times we are operating on 3-4 lands, 2 of which are used for activating Nykthos. We would need to bump up the landcount to ~24 lands to accomodate 4x Nykthos.
3) Another option - have a 1-of Nykthos as a fetchable source, either by KOTR or Primeval Titan. This approach is less appetizing however, as what is the point in warping the deck to fetch a singleton sol land?
4) The power of Eldrazi Temple is that it can be used in multiples. We cannot play multiple Nykthos', so maxing out at (+1) mana generation for a single land is not incredibly appetizing. This is why we dream a little bigger. It doesn't have to be much.
5) There are a number of threats that fill the 4-6 cmc slot that are easily castable. I do agree that going big is not necessary in this deck (Genesis Wave, Walking Ballista, Genesis Hydra, etc), however I do think that 6 cmc is extremely reasonable. To go even lower, we've had iterations of Devotion in the past that beatdown with Boggart Ram Gang, BTE, Wolfbriar, etc. 4 CMC has a lot to work with as well.
6) Devoted Druid is a good plan against Damping Sphere. Infinite mana does not care about the tax, this variant may prove the most successful in the new metagame.