MTG Salvation

Best of luck team devotion at the Modern Tournament!
Great ideas everyone! The walker deck looks interesting. Making Garruk a 4 mana Overrun is pretty cool. Great ideas for land destruction/disruption deck. I suppose I could make a separate land destruction deck to try out every once in a while.

My deck saw some play vs. a friend last night. Fine tuning what is now enchantment based deck with a diverse number of wincons. I've been getting some great interactions between the cards. Summoner's Pact has been winning me a ton of games by grabbing Craterhoof Behemoth. Wolfbriar was starting to show up a little too often. Took out 2 in place of Boon Satyr and Xenagos, God of Revels. Hopefully these cards will give the deck some more offensive and defensive capabilities before we drop a bomb. Having multiple copies of Wolfbriar, and/or summoner's pact in hand was putting me in a bad place previously as I had usually only a few puny creatures out before casting Wolfbriar. I lost games with my wincon in hand and a turn or 2 away due to weak board presence.

Boon Satyr has many potential uses. It's an enchantment and creature that sticks around a long time to keep adding devotion. I think it will prove nice to get ride of pesky creatures on the opponent's side by using its flash capabilities. With 3 Birds of Paradise in the deck, it can also add some evasion to our deck or protect against flying creatures. Done properly, it can be a nice two for one if you can kill an opponent's creature while keeping the creature it's bestowed on alive. When the bestowed creature dies, you still have another creature.

Eidolon of Blossoms is a powerhouse. I've upped the count to 4 and felt good about it in previous games. It combos amazingly well with Genesis wave as my enchantment count is up to 18 now. With Oath of Nissa and Eidolon, the deck keeps me trucking right on through with the card draw. The card draw is so significant, it seems to make up for the anti-synergy between Wave, Summoner's Pact and Oath, as I tend to draw into my win cons anyway. Eidolon seems not to draw too much attention from my opponents for some reason. I guess it's hard for them to justify a removal spell on a 2/2, but perhaps it's just my limited play group.

Here's my updated list. The deck has been playing much better than previous incarnations. I believe to be on the right track! What do you think?

***Edit*** I traded one Summoner's Pact for a Wolfbriar and one Garruk for Kiora.

Quote from Shelldell »

How do you intend to break Boom's symmetry?

Actually I never got an answer to a rules question I asked on another forum. I'm not sure about this, but you could target an uncracked fetchland on your side of the board, before the spell resolves you crack the fetchland. I'm not sure if the spell still resolves or not if that happens though.

Also, we have so many other permanents that ramp us, we have the advantage even if that doesn't work. A turn 2 Boom if we are on the play can leave them with no land out starting their second turn, while we still have an elf/bird/sprawl and a land at the end of our turn 2. We keep building our mana base while at the same time keeping them at 1-2 lands. When we draw a Primal command, we can then derive them of the chance of drawing into a fresh land. (Or get ride of that land completely by shuffling their library into their graveyard after putting it on top.)

Speaking of land destruction becoming prevalent in modern, I dreamed up a disgusting land destruction archetype. I'm not sure it really needs to be a devotion deck at all, but here it is. I don't like land destruction based decks, so I'm not going to build one. Essentially, the deck gets ahead of the curve, then keep our opponents at very few land the whole game. I posted it in case someone else feels like brewing it up.

Beast Within and Primal Command are already great flex cards in our color, adding a further layer of control to a land destruction theme.

Nissa would be counterproductive with so many strangleroot geists in your deck goatslayer. It would mean loosing a benefit of hers, +1 counter on all of your creatures. Doesn't combo well with strangleroot. Perhaps a Primal Command in place of a walker could be good. You can recur with eternal witness and grab a finisher for next turn.

**Edit** I noticed you are already running Primal Command. Summoner's Pact works great with Craterhoof and many creatures. It can provide that wincon a turn faster than Primal command unless you have 13 mana. Pact allows you to play a craterhoof for 8 mana the turn you draw a pact.

Hey guys. I've been searching on the net and not getting a clear answer. I saw that all the permanents from Genesis Wave enter the battlefield at the same time. Also that we get to choose how ETB effects go on the stack. Does this mean that if I reveal an Eidolon of Blossoms and other enchantments that have legal targets, I can draw a card off of each enchantment that entered from the Eidolon of Blossoms? If I reveal a Courser of Kruphix and land, can I gain live from that?

I'm sure it's been answered before, but it's hard to find an existing thread to answer my question.

Flagstones of Trokair more than doubled in price almost overnight. I need it for a B/W smallpox control deck that sees only fringe play in modern. Does anyone know why this card jumped so high? Speculations on if it climb, remain steady or drop after this significant jump?

Hello. I'm wondering how Boom Bust, the Boom side, interacts with my own fetchlands. If I target one of my fetchlands like Wooded Foothills, then use the fetchland's ability before the spell tries to resolve itself, will it still resolve and destroy my opponents land if that land is still a valid target?

Thanks for the help in advance!

I am currently trying to make Wolfbriar a winning card also. It is a fledgling idea so many games of play testing and hours of brewing will be needed to see if it has any real potential. We must be patient. We are essentially building a combo deck, just not an infinite, game winning assured combo. It is a scary idea that our combo may not kill our opponent outright, but it can still have potential.

Sarkhan Vol is a great card in any R/G devotion deck. It has serious power and combos nicely with Genesis Wave/Hydra. I wouldn't get too discouraged by the nombo between Wolfbriar and Genesis cards. A wolfbriar is still a 4/4 when revealed. A large enough wave that reveals Sarkhan with many creatures or Craterhoof can win us the game too. It is a back up wincon.

4 Burning-Tree Emissary seems like too much in this deck. You could potentially fit more powerful cards in that slot.

Trying to draw into a haste wolfbriar combo is hard to be sure. I'm attempting to remedy the problem with lots of card draw. I also upped Summoner's Pact count to 4. I was trying to include blue for Temur Ascendancy previously, but it was just too situational. With the added strain on the mana base, it just wasn't worth it. I'm playing 3 Eidelon of Blossoms and doing an enchantment theme. Eidolon has potential for ridiculous card draw and comes down early. Since Oath of Nissa has been released, this card has a lot more potential than before. He adds synergy to the 2 Coursers you're already running. Essentially we must do everything we can to draw into a pact or wolfbriar while setting up a defense so we can manage to do so. As with every devotion deck, card draw is essential.

I added one Hammer of Purphoros. It adds haste and synergy with Eidelon. It can give potential benefit if someone tries to destroy our lands with ghost quarter and what not.
***Edit*** I just realized Hammer makes enchantment creatures It has Really good synergy with Eidolon of Blossoms.

Here's my wolfbriar decklist. I took out the blue. I'm hoping extra Summoner's pacts and card draw will make the combo more streamlined.

I have a rules question specific to our lovely deck. How does Wolfbriar Elemental interact with Cloudstone Curio? If Curio is out when wolfbriar is played, do the tokens come out after wolfbriar enters? If so, we can then return the wolfbriar to our hand off one of the tokens correct?

I know that white is not often seen in this deck, but has anyone considered Call the Gatewatch? Perhaps it could be used to fetch that planeswalker combo in a curio deck.

A note on Courser of Kruphix vs. Elvish Visionary. I understand why elvish visionary may be more useful in a Cloudstone deck. A benefit no one mentioned about Courser is that it can turn late game fetchlands into a crazy gut shot draw. If you don't have the game winning card on top of your deck, and an uncracked fetch, you can shuffle and thin the deck right before the draw step. It's quite a minimal advantage to be sure statistically, but it is something. It can also gain advantage with Oath of Nissa as someone pointed out. I'm running 2 Eidelon of Blossoms, so potential card draw there. In many games an early 2/4 with potential for life gain would have been very welcome. I added one to my deck.

Someone asked about Temur Ascendancy and it's worthiness in a deck build. I posted about this card recently. I'm building this homebrew in hopes of finding a way to abuse Sarkhan Vol's haste ability. Currently it's focus is of course getting a ton of mana, then casting a haste Wolfbriar Elemental for the win. I use Temur Ascendancy trying to make this combo viable. It has a lot of potential synergy with Genesis Hydra, Genesis wave and Wolfbriar. (It draws a card for us and gives Hydra haste if it is revealed.) However, it's still a pretty narrow card. I'm trying to get some synergy going with Eidelon of blossoms. It tends to draw me at least one card if it comes out, often enough 2-3 cards (I'm running 2 blossoms.) Despite this, it can still sometimes be too slow of a play on turn 3. If you want to get haste off of Gensis Wave, Sarkhan Vol is probably a better choice than Ascendancy. He's a bit more versatile, and all of his abilities are potentially huge threats. You'd be surprised how much pressure an early Sarkhan Vol puts on an opponent. When played early with enough protection, your opponent cannot ignore his ultimate ability creeping up on them.

Interesting comments on Cyclonic Rift. My deck is currently URG for Sarkhan Vol, Temur Ascendancy, Dragonlord Atarka and Thassa, Master of the Depths. Of course Kessig Wolfrun is in there also. Vexing Shusher in sideboard to punish blue mages. These can all be potential U/R/G targets for a deck, if you're considering adding red to your U/G deck.

Craterhoof Behemoth is going to replace Dragonlord Atarka in my deck. I'm running 2 Summoner's Pact. I imagine that he will play nicely in a deck with 4 wolfbriar elementals. The fact that I don't need another haste enabler to make him game winning is very appealing.

Happy gaming everyone.

I was able to play some games of modern testing the haste Temur deck posted a few replies above. My deck didn't fair so well, but I saw great room for improvement.

I was playing against a super aggro red homebrew. It really is an incredible deck with turn 2 win possibilities. It essentially runs on 4 Akroan Crusader 4 Monastery swiftspead, 4 Hellspark Elemental, Burn spells and Instant buffs such as Titan's Strength, Brute Force and Mutagenic Growth. It is insanely fast, and the owner said he beat Splinter Twin before the ban 2 games out of 4.

Anyway, my deck had too high of a mana curve and Sarkhan Vol showed up too often. I would only have my mana dorks and possibly an Eidelon of Blossoms out for early blocking. Despite this deck's super fast playing, I can see how my deck can suffer against any strong aggro deck with too high of a curve. I added one Strangleroot Geist and upped Birds to 2. (The deck also lagged hard without a turn 1 ramp play.)

Eidelon of Blossoms worked out great! It drew me many a card almost every time I played it.

Temur Ascendancy was an interesting addition. I believe this card has potential. As pointed out by Curdbros, if we hit a Temur Ascendancy with hydra, it comes out first to net us a card when Hydra enters and it has haste! This did happen in play. Temur has also grabbed me a card off of Blossoms. One thing the deck did well, once I had the mana, was continuously draw cards. It happened more frequently than in any devotion deck I've made so far.
Temur Ascendancy did help me win a couple of games doing exactly what it was supposed to do, give Wolfbriar (and hydra) haste. One game I had an early play of Temur ascendancy, with two wolfbriar's in hand. With only a utopia sprawl for ramp, I was able to play the wolfbriar's in successive turns for lethal.

I never drew a Summoner's Pact, though trading it or a wolfbriar for another card I had could have won a couple of games if they had just shown up more frequently.

I took out Temur Sabertooth, too slow. It was usually my death the turn before it would have been useful. Minus one Sarkhan and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar for 2 Kiora, Master of the Depths. Having a second mana ramping walker, with card draw is too good to pass up. The deck already runs U/G dual land for Temur Ascendancy, so might as well. Genesis Hydra into Temur Ascendancy or Kiora equals great card advantage. I think this deck is headed for a combo type commitment on haste creatures. We'll see if Hastey Hydras and Wolfbriar's with tons of card draw can get the job done.

Fertile Ground is back up to a 2 count in the deck. The synergy between it and the newer additions of Eidolon of Blossoms and Kiora, while color fixing is a plus. Also it can't be targeted by creature removal, yay!

I added Dragonlord Atarka to the mix. I had no answer to flying previously. I felt it was better than Xenagos, God of Revels (in this brew.) Xenagos's haste ability became slightly redundant. Even his additional power boost was usually of no consequence, since the opponent is most likely going to chump block that damage. A haste Dragonlord Atarka should be something to behold. Clear the board of chump blockers, a planeswalker, or a flier to swing in for 8. I think Dragonlord will often be a handy target for Summoner's Pact. I did have a couple of fliers kill me vs. an unimpressive U/G homebrew. Having some kind of answer to flying seemed necessary.
I'm not sure if I should have Dragonlord Atarka in the mainboard, or another Summoner's Pact, or something else entirely. He seems at least sideboard worthy since I'm running 2 search spells.

Here's the new deck. Many thanks for the encouragement and commentary on previous incarnations. Hopefully it will blossom into a winning deck.

One last note, I played Pulse of Murasa at pre-release. AMAZING in limited! Also possibly worthy as sideboard? It can basically negate someone's turn. Destroy my elf and get in damage? I get it back and probably net some life. I see it as a 3 for one against burn decks. It undoes 2 of their spells and nets us a permanent. It can get us back a Nykthos from the graveyard enabling us to super ramp twice if we draw into 2 Nykthos. It's at instant speed! Something to consider. Perhaps that Eternal Witness/Primal Command combo control deck could make good use of it too.

Where are you getting your information on the modern banned list update? I could only find a site that said it would be updated on Monday 1/18/16. I would love to know all of the details. Wizards website has the last update for the banned list as last year.

@curdbros Thanks for pointing out that grabbing Temur Ascendancy off of a Genesis Hydra nets me a card. I forgot that we get the permanent before hydra enters the battlefield.

@ Gary238 Thanks for the thoughts on my list. I think you're right about dropping baloths for more Wolfbriar elementals. The scalelability of Wolfbriar beats Baloth's slightly cheaper cost and 1 toughness greater. Also, with 4 Wolfbriars floating around, it makes adding that Temur Sabertooth an even better idea. Nice insights. I'll get some real playtesting with reports in asap. Though asap will be over a week I'm sure

PS I opened a Nissa, Voice of Zendikar today at prerelease. I feel like it could be the nudge I need to put at least a one of in the deck.

Has anyone tried to make a blue green devotion deck? Now that Kiora, Master of Depths and Bring to Light are out, there may be some u/g devotion deck waiting to be uncovered. Also Kruphix, God of Horizons and [card]Prime Speaker Zenaga
[/card]look like they could have potential.

Blue gives card draw and evasion. Thassa, God of the Sea can make multiple giant creatures unblockable, filter the deck and possibly net us an indestructible creature.

Here are some interesting blue/green cards I found for brewing consideration, plus those we already know and love.

So I've considered everyone's feedback and have been spending way too much time brewing. This deck has card draw/advantage in permanents, unlike previous decks I posted. The main difference between this and other devotion decks is that it enables Wolfbriar elemental and the tokens it creates to have haste. Having 8-14 mana to spend hastey wolfbriar is hard for an opponent to deal with. It beats removal which is nice. I've added Temur Ascendancy to help give my creatures haste while drawing cards. Summoner's pact was added to allow us to fetch and play Wolfbriar when needed. It can also do well grabbing a Genesis Hydra if Temur Ascendancy is out, as that combo will draw us at least one card, possibly 2 while making giant haste creatures. Kiora, Master of Depths was added since I'm already splashing blue. Eidolon of Blossoms was added for card draw and synergy with Temur Ascendancy. One thing I've noticed in very limited play testing with this haste deck is that giving haste to mana creatures is awesome. Gives us one guaranteed use out of mana creatures before removed, and helps ramping in general. I'm trying out at least 1 voyaging satyr in place of a birds of paradise. Being able to use a nykthos, then play voyaging satyr and untap that same nykthos on the same turn satyr is played leads to crazy ramp. I may switch the single birds out in favor of another satyr if the deck can support it.

When I first added Wolfbriar to the deck, I took out Genesis Hydra since revealing a wolfbriar is slightly counter productive. With the addition of Temur Ascendancy I had to put hydra back in. Genesis Hydra can potentially give itself haste if it reveals an ascendancy, Sarkhan or Xenagos, God of Revels. It is a threat in itself, while also digging for the haste for a wolfbriar combo.

I'm considering trying to fit a Temur Sabertooth into the deck. It can potentially get bonus uses out of a Genesis Hydra or Wolfbriar elemental. It protects itself and another creature for 2 mana. Also, if my creatures have haste, I can potentially make it indestructible for free tapping an arbor elf to net me 3 mana, return it to hand, then play the elf again untapping the forest, and it's still possible to bounce another creature later on if targeted for removal. If I were somehow lucky enough to have an enchanted land with 3 enchantments on it with Temur Sabertooth, an elf and haste to all creatures, it becomes an infinite mana combo. It activates Temur Ascendancy also, making it a crazy good support card.

I think this deck has much more potential than previous decks I've posted. What do you think?

So, I have another card for consideration for y'all, especially in relation to the Gruul deck. I think that giving Wolfbriar and company haste (while hopefully pumping them all up) can become a reliable wincon for the deck. It does not take much mana to get out huge amounts of damage. For 10 mana that card makes 20 damage spread between 7 creatures. If Sarkhan, Liege or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar are out when it hits, that 10 mana becomes 27 damage. So, hastey Wolfbriar can be a good wincon. How to give it (and other creatures) haste without overloading the deck with Sarkhan Vol?

I am considering running a one of Mass Hysteria and would like to hear from the more experienced players about this . This card could be good to save in hand until Wolfbriar comes out if Sarkhan isn't already on the battlefield. Even if Sarkhan is on the battlefield, Mass Hysteria can be played to use Sarkhan's act of treason ability instead of his +1 haste ability, so it's not *exactly* a redundant card.

Now, Mass Hysteria does something else that isn't so obvious. It can help us get Garruk out on turn 2, in more ways than one, without nykthos or BTE. Now, we all know the pain of having our weak but crucial arbor elf being bolted or otherwise destroyed, especially before we get to use it. With a Mass Hysteria out, we get at least one guaranteed use out of all untapping creatures. It also allows us to wait to play arbor elf until turn 2 without a penalty (thus giving them one less turn to target our elf.)

For example, turn 1 Utopia spraw. turn 2 add another sprawl to the first sprawled forest, then tap it for 3 mana, playing arbor elf and Mass hysteria, with one floating mana. Untap forest with elf, cast garruk.

Or turn 1 Mass Hysteria. Turn 2 sprawl on forest, tap to cast 2 arbor elves. Untap sprawled forest twice, cast Garruk.

The drawback of this card is obvious, our opponents creatures have haste! In the above scenarios, we still need to protect Garruk by using his -1 ability or playing another creature and not attacking with it.

In addition, it can allow BTE's to swing in on turn 2 and utilize the red mana they make. Playing the card early will make the game quite a race vs. other creature heavy decks. However, since this Gruul deck regularly has 2 or more creatures enter the battlefield every turn, it should be more beneficial for us than opponents.

I feel like this card could be terrible vs. Zoo or affinity, however provides almost no benefit to a Twin or burn deck.

Do you think it's lower cost, potential explosive mana ramp start and combo potential with wincon make this a better choice than Fervor or Ashling's Prerogative?

PS, Shamanic Revelation looks great. I forgot all about it's Ferocious ability. As I mentioned above, this deck gets crazy amounts of creatures and can get a few at about 4 power pretty easily.