Monowhite Devotion, um deck branco como a neve. ;)

Aparentemente pouco explorado, creio que monowhite devotion tem potencial para ser um dos decks mais fortes do ambiente. Principalmente depois de Journey into Nyx, que trouxe uma ou duas cartas chave para o arquétipo.

O truque para explorar o potencial completo desse deck é um splash azul, com algumas poucas spells-chave.

Segue a lista atual do deck:

24 terrenos:

8 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Mana Confluence
2 Azorius Guildgate
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

2cc:
4 Precinct Captain
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram

3cc:
4 Banishing Light
4 Detention Sphere
2 Spear of Heliod
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Boros Reckoner

3/4cc:
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles

6cc:
3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

3xcc: 
4 Sphinx's Revelation

Sideboard
4 Last Breath
4 Celestial Flare
4 Dissolve
3 Jace, Memory Adept


Explicando algumas cartas:

4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx:
É essencial na estratégia, na verdade  uma das principais razões para jogar com esse deck. Em um jogo ideal, Nykthos pode ajudar a descer um Elspeth no quarto turno, ou jogar uma Sphinx's Revelation gigantesca no late game.

4 Nyx-Fleece Ram:
Você deve ter notado que esse deck é muito parecido com UW control, mas não utiliza Supreme Verdict, nem anulação maindeck. Para otimizar devotion, o deck tenta "segurar" o início de jogo com permanentes brancas. Nyx-Fleece é perfeito para esse trabalho, versátil pois bloqueia um terrestre, ganha vida e pode ser encantado com Eidolon of Battles. Não é a carta ideal contra controle mas não chega a ser uma carta morta, pois ele pode atacar quando encantado. E é uma peça excelente contra quase todos os decks, burn, weenie, até mesmo midrange, que frequentemente utiliza alguma criatura 4/x. A vida que ele ganha é útil também contra monoblack, que usa gray merchant para sugar a sua.

4 Banishing Light/4 Detention Sphere

Outra(s) carta(s) excelente(s) para segurar o jogo e contribuir com devotion. Ter 8 cartas que podem lidar com permanentes torna esse deck muito versátil.

4 Precinct Captain/3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

Além de contribuirem bem com devotion, esses caras funcionam incrivelmente bem com eidolon of battles. Encantar um deles muitas vezes pega o oponente de surpresa, e o token gerado só faz ele aumentar mais ainda. São excelentes em combate pois o oponente fica desestimulado a atacar.

4 Boros Reckoner

Além de ser super-chato para o oponente em combate, esse cara é o campeão da devotion. Pode se dizer que a dream-hand desse deck é Precinct Captain, seguido de Boros Reckoner, seguido de Nykthos e Elspeth. Claro que isso vai acontecer 1 em cada 1000 jogos, mas é uma sensação indescritível. ^^

Imagine ter esses caras lutando do seu lado da mesa:

2 Spear of Heliod

Essa não é uma carta absolutamente essencial para a estratégia do deck. Mas encaixa bem e contribui para devotion. O deck tem muitos geradores de tokens e criaturas em geral. Deve ser muito louco atacar com um Nyx-Fleece Ram 1/6 não é mesmo ?

3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Simplesmente umas das cartas mais fortes do standart atualmente. Nesse deck em particular todas as 3 habilidades podem ser muito úteis.

4 Sphinx's Revelation

Outra carta fortíssima se o jogo durar muito. Se o jogo ficar "stalled" contra a grande maioria dos decks, você acabará levando a melhor, por quê mais cedo ou mais tarde compra uma dessas e enche a mão de cartas.

SIDEBOARD:

4 Last Breath
Versátil, pode ser usado contra burn, eliminando Phoenix, contra monoblue e até mesmo para ganhar vida em alguns casos.

4 Celestial Flare
Com certeza o ponto fraco desse deck é protection from white. Essa carta tenta amenizar um pouco esse problema.

4 Dissolve
Aqui talvez seja melhor uma anulação que use menos mana azul, já que a base de mana é mais para branca. Pode ser usada contra decks de controle/combo em geral e talvez para ajudar a segurar protection from white.

3 Jace, Memory Adept
Contra decks de controle, em especial contra turbo_gate_fog, a habilidade de "millar" o oponente oferece uma alternativa para matá-lo.


É isso aí pessoal, na minha opinião, considerando o potencial desse deck, ele é muito pouco utilizado. Tem um início meio lento de vez em quando mas é fortíssimo no mid/late game. O legal é que apesar de ser control, é um deck com potencial agressivo, sem ficar naquele lenga-lenga do arquétipo draw go. Creio que lembra mais um estilo "tap-out-control", mas seria mais justo chamá-lo de "exile-out-control". =)

Espero que alguém goste do deck e vença alguma coisa com ele, rs.

Abraços e bons jogos.

M13 Draft Cool Combos

M13 combos!

After playing M13 draft for a while, I realized every color combination has some cool combos. Those small 2 or 3 cards interactions, can make some filler cards a lot better, some even make usually weak cards into powerful locks.

I'll cover combos in each 2 color combination, all of them have some interesting interactions!

Blue and Green:

I'll start with my favourite: Blue and Green!

Blue and Green is not a very played combination, but it is very powerful depending on the pool.

The raw power of green, combined with the stalling blue can provide, makes explosive combinations.

One of the core combos with blue and green is:

Returning a sorcery or an instant each turn can be really powerful, lets see some of the cards that can be recycled every turn with this engine:

Fog is an easy to get card, alone it is not so good, inside this engine it can be awesome, for 5 mana each turn, you get nearly unkillable.

Prey Upon can get rid of weenies, for a decent cost.

Green can make a good ground defense, recurring plummet can take care of the sky.

If you get to 8 mana, talrand's invocation and sleep are really powerful engines, they will probably win the game for you.

Augur of Bolas is not so bad either with Primadox, specially if you can grab a lot of instants and sorceries.

If you are in a more offensive deck:

Well well well, talk about a clock. 

White and Green.

While this combination has lots of good quality creatures, it has a hard time interacting. If you can get an agressive start and a decent amount of medium range fatties to pressure, you are in good shape. But if that plan fails, it is hard to recover.

Lets look at some combos that can help the agressive role or can help interact a bit more:

 

Green and white has a lot of ways to produce tokens, so: Crusader of Odric can get very big in this archetype. Among the best starts for Crusader is playing: Elvish Visionary, it pumps Crusader, replacing itself, helping to dig for the token making cards.

Rancor is a powerful card, it is hard to get multiple copies of it (or even 1 copy sometimes). If you have that luck and you are playing GW, consider this interaction.

Rancor become a lot more powerful when it has multiple targets to land on. Create a 3/1 token, attack, if it gets blocked and die, you can cast rancor on the next guy. I works very well also with Attended Knight:

We have potential for a 4/2 First Strike, hard to block, or a 3/1 expendable token, not so bad either.

Another interesting combination:

Sentinel Spider is among the reasons to play green, a 4/4 vigilance with reach helps a lot in the beef department. 

Vigilance is a lot better when you can get to attack every turn, Divine Favor helps a lot on that matter.

A 5/7 is very hard to kill, hard to block profitably, and can block nearly anything. Sometimes a later 5/7 with vigilance is a lot more useful than an early 3/5 bear. That can be blocked by any x/4 creature on the other side. (Lots of those available in M13 draft).

Lets see another interaction:

Fungal Sprouting is a problematic card, you need to have a big body in play to enable it. Prized Elephant is among the best options, 4 mana is not a lot for a 4/4 body, and 4 tokens for 4 mana isn't a bad deal.

If you can make that combo work, it be really good with those cards:

Griffin Protector can be a flying beatstick while you fill your table with tokens. Healer can REALLY ensure you will survive while you beat your opponent.

Those combos have some weak spots tho, one problematic card is chandra's fury:

Those sweepers can be a pain for token strategies, so be careful.

Another problem is the casting cost, we have 3 cards costing 4 mana. This can be a problem, make sure you have some cheaper defense cards there to hold, so you have time to enable the combos.

Talking about Ajani's Sunstriker, here is another interesting interaction:

Gaining 6 life early game sure helps survive until the big guys start attacking.

Also:

Swift Justice can be a pretty good combat trick if you have big guys out, also:

First strike + Deathtouch, what else could I ask for ?

Serpent's gift is not a very good card, but if you happen to have a lot off Attended Knights, it gets a lot better! Sadly, there aren't many other first strikers in the set. 

You probably nottest GW is not the most comboish color ever. Most of the combos are more based on the raw power of creatures and some combat tricks to gain life. It can actually be a very fun color combination to play if you can tune your deck properly, not a very easy task to do but can compensate.

Black and Red:

Black and red has a lot of inbuilt combos, lets start by taking a look at my favourite!

Mark of the vampire is a powerful card, black can use disruption to help getting removal out of the way. Mark on an evasive decent body like boar can provide a very fast clock and a powerful way to survive at the same time.

(black disruption)

Another interesting interaction:

Mogg Flunkies is a confused guy, he needs a friend to point the way. Tormented Soul is one of the best friends he could have, fast enabling that early 3/3 body, won't die in combat, giving it more chance to go on and on. On the bad side, soul can't help Flunkies to block, but then again, who want's to block at all ?

Dark Favor doesn't pump toughness a lot, well, it is a perfect fit for Crimson Muckwacker. Nothing like a 6/3 regenerating lizard, attacking every turn to make your day. (be careful with pacifism tho).

Oldest trick on the book, well, vampires need food to ease their hunger. Why not bring some food from the other side of the table ?

The vampire also has some appetite for goblins:

Arsonist can give a little payoff for pump, krenko can provide food twice, not bad fillers in a fast deck.

Usually, Black Red decks are fast and aggressive. Sometimes, if you happen to get a lot of removal and not so many quality creatures, you can go a more controlish route, in that case:

Rummaging Goblin can be awesome with Veilborn Ghoul, each time you get a swamp you can "gain a free card". Wild Guess, usually not a very good card, can be pretty sweet also. Early game, discard Veilborn and draw 2 cards, later just play Veilborn as a consistent kill condition.

If you get removal early, those cards can be very nice later picks. 

Ok, this is a longshot, but if you happen to have some big fatties you would like to revive, there is a combo:

Sadly, most BIG expensive bombs are offcolor, this might be an option for 3 color decks tho, since the cards aren't so bad alone anyway. How about that green 7/7 trample or some 8/8 islandwalk for 5 mana ?

Red and Green

Like WhiteGreen, RedGreen is based more on the raw power and speed, not so much in comboish cards, some interactions are worth mentioning though.

Kindled Fury is no Swift Justice, but in that case it does the trick. If you are worried about defense, that can mean 2 less creatures attacking, even if they fly. Not so bad in offensive situations, Deadly might be a Flunkie Enabler.

Talking about our confused friend:

Isn't Boar a fitting glove for Flunks ? Not many things can be as agressive as those 2 in a row.

If you happen to build a ramp deck (not very easy task to do, but...) this interaction is worth mentioning. No mana is to much mana when we talk about Volcanic Geyser. ^^

Prey Upon needs big creatures to work, Volcanic Strentgh pumps both power and toughness at very low cost. For only 3 mana you can pump your creature, attack, and use prey upon to kill something.

Black and Green:

This color combination is among the most comboish, some powerful interactions can appear. Also, it is among the most powerful, green's raw power and black solid removal, a good pool in this color is hard to deal with.

Lets start with:

If you grab Acidic early, disentomb is not hard to pick late at all. It feels like xmas when you pull this one of. 

5 mana, acidic, bye land.

block, bye attacker.

6 mana, disentomb, acidic AGAIN, bye another land, ready to block again.

Talk about value!

Next:

Black has some nice enablers for Primadox.

Who wouldn't use those 2 anyway ? But yeah, they are stronger in combo mode.

In case you get no black creature to equip, or if you need defense, a regenerating Recluse can make a bad deal to attack you.

If you happen to grab lots of early Mark of the Vampire early, and see some Primal Huntbeast passing by, consider this one.  Hard to deal with, this 5/5 gaining 5 life every turn, can define a game very quickly.