[Primer] Devotion Red

[Tyrael]

Went 3-2 today. Inexperience was the biggest factor in me losing I think, oh well.

0-2 vs Jund
2-0 vs G/R devotion
2-0 vs Esper
2-0 vs Red Devotion
0-2 vs GRU Devotion (Cyclonic Rift augh)

[TBuzzsaw]

I have to ask, as I've tried the deck - Eric's list - do any of you get a lot of horrible hands? I'm thinking Purphoros, 2 Dragons, Reckoner, Temple, Nykthos, BTE kinda thing. I get these at least half the time and if I didn't keep hearing such good things about the deck I'd have given it up as a terrible build! Is this just an extreme case of variance or am I missing something?

When you have a bad hand, it's bad. Variances can be a funny thing. I had to mull down to 4 in one of the games I lost.

The worst opening hand I saw last night was two Nykthos, two BTEs, one Reckoner, one Cackler, and one Ash Zealot. Needless to say I
looked like this when I saw the hand:

[Tyrael]

TB, I can safely say Purp won me the devotion to red mirror and he smacked down the Esper player pretty hard too. Wouldn't replace him with anything

[LaZerBurn]

I am relieved to hear it isn't just me I'll keep playing it - the power out of nowhere sometimes is incredible - "Ok, so I'll tap for Red, overload Mortars, drop my Dragon and win"

I assume that the deck cannot be THAT inconsistent or it wouldn't have posted the results it has. I'm also finding that it is actually quite difficult to play correctly, so the practice is improving my general play skills

I played against the RG build today - seems like it lacks the raw power but has more CA options with the Walkers. Thoughts anyone?

[Tyrael]

I am relieved to hear it isn't just me I'll keep playing it - the power out of nowhere sometimes is incredible - "Ok, so I'll tap for Red, overload Mortars, drop my Dragon and win"

I assume that the deck cannot be THAT inconsistent or it wouldn't have posted the results it has. I'm also finding that it is actually quite difficult to play correctly, so the practice is improving my general play skills

I played against the RG build today - seems like it lacks the raw power but has more CA options with
the Walkers. Thoughts anyone?

I don't think the pw's are worth the splash to green.

Just look at what we get from the W splash:
Chained to the Rocks (improves every creature-based matchup)
Last Breath (improves mono U and small aggro matchups)
Boros Charm (drastically improves matchup vs UW and Esper becomes a total cakewalk)
Assemble The Legion (drastically improves matchup vs Mono B but can also be useful elsewhere)

I wouldn't wanna miss out on any of these

If you want CA, you can always run Chandra

[LP, of the Fires]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1178659

My friend Travis's deck from the same tournament. He thinks the green splash is better, but I beat him twice over the course of the tourney with the white splash so I don't know what that says.

[Helios]

Idk if this is a socially acceptable place to solicit trades, but I need the two Purph and two more Nykthos for this deck if anyone wants to tradsies.

[pruettjohn]

LP, or any other experienced player on here,

Love the Eric Smith list and am playing with some small variations for my meta. Are there times you have tried to replace the weirds with another card? I know they are cheap devotion additions and are good against some removal like AotG but is that even seeing significant play? They just seem so lackluster when playing against most of the top decks. It's not a very good topdeck, they are fairly bad against most of MBD, MUD, and blue based control. Do they do enough against WW and R based decks to keep their auto-include status?

[LP, of the Fires]

Weirds are worth keeping. They're actually fine in this deck since they're a mana sink and you usually have mana floating around when you have an active nykthos. They're also randomly good against walkers.

[LaZerBurn]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1178659

My friend Travis's deck from the same tournament. He thinks the green splash is better, but I beat him twice over the course of the tourney with the white splash so I don't know what that says.

His list looks stronger against MonoU otherwise I prefer the RW build. I should have said that despite my slight envy when playing the RG build as he drew cards and killed my monsters with Domri and made mana and Satyr's with Xenagos this really only amounted to durdling around as I crushed him both times

[Tyrael]

By the way guys, I will be looking to replace something in the board for more copies of Legion's Initiative because I always wished I had more...

[Khaospawn]

Idk if this is a socially acceptable place to solicit trades, but I need the two Purph and two more Nykthos for this deck if anyone wants to tradsies.

You can solicit your body here, just not trades. I'm kidding, of course.


I more or less copied LP's list last night and played against my friend, who is making his return to Standard after a break to get into Modern. My buddy was playing some version of G/r Devotion with a few tweaks. The R/w Devotion deck is pretty fun - it can certainly do powerful things (like turn 3 or turn 4 overloaded Mortars/Stormbreath Dragon ). But I
do have a couple of questions for you guys that have been playing it for awhile - I'm looking at you, LP.

(1) How important is Purphoros to the deck? I'm actually missing the 2 for the deck, and I'm not even sure I'm going to have the 2 for the SCG event I'm going to next Saturday. I first subbed 2 Chandra in his place, but aside from adding to my Devotion, I felt that she was somewhat lackluster in the deck. Of course, her "draw" ability proved somewhat useful at times, and she did help me finish off a Polukranos after I overloaded a Mortars, but she doesn't seem crucial to the deck's performance. I soon just cut her out and added an extra Mortars and an extra Chained to the Rocks, giving me a 3/3 split on the 2 cards.

(2) How important is Rakdos Cackler to the deck? In most of the games I played, he'd be an awkward turn 3-4 draw, and aside from adding an extra pip to my Devotion, he was pretty worthless. There were very few games in which I landed him and then followed up with a 2
drop since my openers would typically include a Temple and a Mountain. I'd play the Mountain, cast Cackler, and then on turn 2 I'd play Temple for the Scry. I'd get an attack in there, but then he was quickly outclassed. I admit, I was only playing against one deck in the quasi-testing I did last night, but I'm sure I'm not the only one underwhelmed by the performance.

(3) What the fuck is up with some of these unplayable, trash hands I draw? Double Temple and a Nykthos with 2 Boros Reckoners and a Dragon...ugh. Some of the hands are just combo-rrific. I truly felt the joy in a turn 3 Stormbreath or a turn 4 Fanatic for 11. It's beautiful. But there were a string of games that I was frequently mulling to 4 or 5. Hell, is it just me?

Anyhoo, any help is appreciated. I plan to cram some more testing in throughout the week, as well as trying to trade for the the 2 P-Daddy for the deck. This week will decide whether or not I'm going to play this deck or some removal heavy aggro deck that curves out
on Dragons.

[Tyrael]

Khaos, if I may answer that for you (I have been testing Eric Smith's for a month now I just recently was able to replace my proxies with real cards to take it to an FNM hehe):

1) Purphoros is a threat opponents MUST answer. Simply having him on board forces your opponents to play differently, same situation as his Hammer. I haven't had a single matchup where I wanted to side him out since he also makes top decking some of your weaker creatures (see 2) also a lot better. My control testing partners all came to the same conclusion after a full night of playstesting: If he sticks to the battlefield, the opposing player is usually dead (also note the combo's I created with Purph/Fanatic and Legion's Initiative hehe).

2) Rakdos Cackler (and FDS) are crucial in winning the matchup vs UW control and it also makes the mono B matchup rather easy as you esentially transform into an aggro deck post board. If you find that the
Cackler's aren't that useful in most matchups you can always SB them and just bring them out post board as I've seen several people do . Note that the no one-drop lists have also been doing pretty well lately so I guess it's up to you. I have too much control in my meta to give them up.

3) Variance, brother! Trust me, G/R's draws (for example) tend to be even worse. The deck mulls pretty badly, I'll give you that.

Hope I was of some help!

[Khaospawn]

Khaos, if I may answer that for you (I have been testing Eric Smith's for a month now I just recently was able to replace my proxies with real cards to take it to an FNM hehe):

1) Purphoros is a threat opponents MUST answer. Simply having him on board forces your opponents to play differently, same situation as his Hammer. I haven't had a single matchup where I wanted to side him out since he also makes top decking some of your weaker creatures (see 2) also a lot better. My control testing partners all came to the same conclusion after a full night of playstesting: If he sticks to the battlefield, the opposing player is usually dead (also note the combo's I created with Purph/Fanatic and Legion's Initiative hehe).

2) Rakdos Cackler (and FDS) are crucial in
winning the matchup vs UW control and it also makes the mono B matchup rather easy as you esentially transform into an aggro deck post board. If you find that the Cackler's aren't that useful in most matchups you can always SB them and just bring them out post board as I've seen several people do . Note that the no one-drop lists have also been doing pretty well lately so I guess it's up to you. I have too much control in my meta to give them up.

3) Variance, brother! Trust me, G/R's draws (for example) tend to be even worse. The deck mulls pretty badly, I'll give you that.

Hope I was of some help!

Thanks, Redbro! It does help.

More or less, I'm just trying to solidify my choice between playing what I'm comfortable with versus something that I know to be strong. R/w is certainly a strong deck with a good angle on the overall metagame.

It looks like I'm going to
need that Purphoros if I'm going to take it to the limit. Hmmm....

[Jack]

I did make a card-borrowing thread at one point, and while nobody's used it successfully yet, there's always a chance that somebody with a spare Purphoros reads it when you bump the thread.

[Khaospawn]

I did make a card-borrowing thread at one point, and while nobody's used it successfully yet, there's always a chance that somebody with a spare Purphoros reads it when you bump the thread.

Food for thought. Thanks, bro!

What do you guys think of this R/w list? It made Top 8 at SCG Indianopolis. It's on the Mutavault plan, not the Nkythos plan.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=62349

[Jabberwocky]

I did make a card-borrowing thread at one point, and while nobody's used it successfully yet, there's always a chance that somebody with a spare Purphoros reads it when you bump the thread.

Food for thought. Thanks, bro!

What do you guys think of this R/w list? It made Top 8 at SCG Indianopolis. It's on the Mutavault plan, not the Nkythos plan.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=62349

Does that even qualify as Devotion? It seems more like a Big Boros deck. Nothing in there requires
devotion except purp. No FoM, no Nykthos, etc.

Seems interesting, though. I might take the helix out for another CttR and Mortars.

AotG seems like an interesting SB option as well, especially with all the smaller critters in there.

[Khaospawn]

It plays Purphoros. Devotion is as Devotion does.

[LaZerBurn]

(3) What the fuck is up with some of these unplayable, trash hands I draw? Double Temple and a Nykthos with 2 Boros Reckoners and a Dragon...ugh. Some of the hands are just combo-rrific. I truly felt the joy in a turn 3 Stormbreath or a turn 4 Fanatic for 11. It's beautiful. But there were a string of games that I was frequently mulling to 4 or 5. Hell, is it just me?

Anyhoo, any help is appreciated. I plan to cram some more testing in throughout the week, as well as trying to trade for the the 2 P-Daddy for the deck. This week will decide whether or not I'm going to play this deck or some removal heavy aggro deck that curves out on Dragons.

I
thought exactly the same and asked the guys here the same thing! I do appreciate the deck is strong but I am inclined to think you have to learn to play it really well and have a good slick of luck draw wise to pilot it successfully

If you decide that you want heavy removal curving to Dragons check the Big Boros thread Khaos - this is the current 'default' 75

[Tyrael]

Just playing Purph hardly makes you a devotion deck

That brew seems like someone tried to mix some devotion/big boros elements into a burn list and it looks like a damn mess to me. I see what he's trying to do (Purp + pyro tokens for damage triggers) but I don't see the point over running a 'traditional' R/W devotion list tbh. The reason why we run Purp is because he does three things for us: his ETB trigger, he can easily become a creature due to the huge density of threats (and therefore a bunch of red mana symbols) we run and his activated ability can be very relevant for a deck that often has excess mana floating around. Seems like that SCG deck relies way too heavily on Boros Reckoner to get the job done.

I don't like it

I thought exactly the same and asked the guys here the same thing! I do appreciate the deck is strong but I am inclined to think you have to learn to play it really well and have a good slick of luck draw wise to pilot it successfully

It takes some time getting used to the kind of hands you're able to keep. You will very rarely get the crazy good hands (or god hands as people have been calling them), instead you'll be stuck with seemingly 'average/bad' hands a lot of the time. I have had several matches where I was unable to play anything until turn three and where I still managed to finish the beatdown by turn 5. This deck has a lot of outs and recovering from a slow start is rather easy. With a deck as explosive as this it's okay to take a risk once
in a while

That said, if the only land in your opening hand is a double Nykthos I'd be inclined to go for the mulligan too

[Helios]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this deck wins because every card can kill your opponent. Yes?

[Tyrael]

[deck= R/W devotion]
Creatures [30]
4 Ash Zealot
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Frostburn Weird
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells [6]
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Mizzium Mortars

Lands [24]
1 Boros Guildgate
11 Mountain
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph

Sideboard [15]
2 Assemble the Legion
3 Boros Charm
2 Chained to the Rocks
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Firedrinker Satyr
1 Last Breath
2 Mizzium Mortars[/deck]

So yeah it's not every card, but close

The deck sacrifices a major part of red's burn package for a dense creature base which is good on both offense and defense.

[Khaospawn]

(3) What the fuck is up with some of these unplayable, trash hands I draw? Double Temple and a Nykthos with 2 Boros Reckoners and a Dragon...ugh. Some of the hands are just combo-rrific. I truly felt the joy in a turn 3 Stormbreath or a turn 4 Fanatic for 11. It's beautiful. But there were a string of games that I was frequently mulling to 4 or 5. Hell, is it just me?

Anyhoo, any help is appreciated. I plan to cram some more testing in throughout the week, as well as trying to trade for the the 2 P-Daddy for the deck. This week will decide whether or not I'm going to play this deck or some removal heavy
aggro deck that curves out on Dragons.

I thought exactly the same and asked the guys here the same thing! I do appreciate the deck is strong but I am inclined to think you have to learn to play it really well and have a good slick of luck draw wise to pilot it successfully

If you decide that you want heavy removal curving to Dragons check the Big Boros thread Khaos - this is the current 'default' 75

I don't know if I want to do the Big Boros. There's something about it that I'm not quite comfortable with, mostly
the Temples (I hate them, actually). I'm drawn to the big Devotion deck for a few reasons: it's explosive, it has access to crazy mana with Nykthos, and can deal huge damage with Mogis.

Just playing Purph hardly makes you a devotion deck

That brew seems like someone tried to mix some devotion/big boros elements into a burn list and it looks like a damn mess to me. I see what he's trying to do (Purp + pyro tokens for damage triggers) but I don't see the point over running a 'traditional' R/W devotion list tbh. The reason why we run Purp is because he does three things for us: his ETB trigger, he can easily become a creature due to the huge density of threats (and therefore a bunch of red mana symbols) we run and his activated ability can be very relevant for a deck that often has excess mana floating around. Seems like that SCG deck relies
way too heavily on Boros Reckoner to get the job done.

I don't like it

I think any deck that includes a card that has the Devotion mechanic could be considered a "Devotion deck." Look at Mono Blue Devotion - it plays only Master of Waves and Thassa as its Devotion cards (players started cutting the singleton Nykthos long ago). Would you not consider it a Devotion deck?

This deck still wants to have enough Devotion to bring Purphoros online.

However, I don't like the deck too much either. I just wanted to hear some thoughts on the deck from everybody.

[LP, of the Fires]

RE Nomenclature: A devotion deck is any deck highly concerned about the devotion mechanic. I wouldn't classify the RW deck from the open as a devotion deck because Purphoros is used as just a combo piece with assemble, YP, and elspeth.

RE My boros devotion deck: Variance. That's what you're seeing in those terrible hands. Some hands are deceptive keeps though which you really develop a feel for after playing the deck for awhile. And yes, the deck wins because every card kills the opponent. The major difference between my deck and the Green devotion deck is that my deck just wants to kill you FAST while the green deck wants to overpower you with various permanents.

Tryeal mostly addressed your points correctly Khaos. I do board out purphoros on occasion, but the card is just insane. If you're WAY behind and are pretty sure you're only gonna get 1 more untap step, playing purhporos and praying usually gives you the
most outs to winning an unwinnable game.

[Tyrael]

When do you board out Purp, LP?

[LP, of the Fires]

Mostly by ear, often against decks faster then me.

[Tyrael]

Oh yeah,

I haven't had the 'pleasure' of testing Eric Smith's list vs WW yet since only one player at my FNM plays it and he's an asshole so he refused to help me playtest the deck. Do you have any experience with the matchup because it seems like it might be rough without Anger of the Gods post board...

[LP, of the Fires]

Hammer tokens are colorless and can mess up brave the elements. Mostly, try to use removal on soldier of the pantheon, banisher priest, or imposing sovergin. Boros reckoner is a house obviously, but they have plenty of ways to answer it so he's not auto win like he normally is vs. creature decks. Stormbreath dragon shuts them down though. I usually try to stabilize, play a dragon, and peck away with guys until I can make dragon monstorous or otherwise present lethal in one big turn.

[Tyrael]

Thanks LP, that's very useful. I always imagined the deck being slam dunked hard by an overloaded Mizzium Mortars but it turns out I'm not that great at baiting out Brave the Elements...

[Pyreheart Bezerra]

We should update the Primer front-page with LP's most recent list and acknowledge his success. Also I loose sideboarding guide (maybe Purps from a couple pages back?) never hurts. Id PM the "Maintainer of the Primer" if I knew who it was.

[TBuzzsaw]

Am I the only one still running 2 Last Breaths in the SB? It's a meta call for me though, since there's a high number of MUD decks in the places I play at.

[Tyrael]

Am I the only one still running 2 Last Breaths in the SB? It's a meta call for me though, since there's a high number of MUD decks in the places I play at.

Same here

I just like having more outs vs aggro

I think it's more of a meta call though, it sure doesn't hurt to have it vs MUD

[TBuzzsaw]

Went 5-1 at an event tonight in a new place full of control. Beat two American controls, one Esper, a Boros Burn, and MUD. The only loss was to a new Selesnya brew I wasn't prepared for. I'll take back what I said about Purphoros for now since he won me two games, but the MVP was definitely Hammer and Fanatic.

Also, I can't count how many times I was able to go T1 Cackler > T2 Ash > T3 BTE Hammer > T4 Fanatic. One game I went T2 Ash > T3 Hammer > T4 BTE BTE Nykthos Purphoros Cackler Fanatic. The look on my opponent was priceless.

[LP, of the Fires]

3-1 Tonight. Beat Vundo playing Walter white, lost to his friend on the same deck. Also beat some random white deck and crushed Mono-Blue. Overall, not much info gained since it was Tuesday night magic and I either just outdrew people or played badly(game 3 vs. walter white was very winnable if I take a different line).

[TBuzzsaw]

Where do you play on Tuesdays LP? Or rather, where do you play in general?

[vundo]

nextgen video games in the los angeles area

[TBuzzsaw]

Eesh, too far for me. I'd love to play with fell Red Mages though.

[TBuzzsaw]

TNM took place in bizarro world tonight apparently. Went 2-2, here are the highlights:

- All four matches were Mono B.
- One starting hand was a full set of Nykthos and three Reckoners.
- I mulled down to four one game and somehow won.
- One round loss was mana screwed then mana flood. The other round loss I saw three Garys in a row and game three of that one I saw three Demons in a row.
- At the very least my two losses were 2-1.
- I pulled off Purp/Assemble all four rounds.


So one question that comes to mind, how do we sideboard against Jund? I assume we treat it like any G ramp deck?

[Tyrael]

Depends

How much removal was he running?

[TBuzzsaw]

Lots of removals along with Return and Thoughtseize. Creatures are running your usual Gruul suspects. It's an odd duck to play against and sideboard.

Speaking of odd ducks, I lost badly to BUG midrange/control tonight. It felt like a high curve MUD deck with lots of removals.

I dropped out of FNM tonight with 1-2, with my two losses being VERY bad losses. I mulled down to 5 three times, and my deck just wasn't giving me anything I need. I quit before I became more frustrated. I hate how bad the deck can perform when it's "off".