Report Peasant Masters 2016 - Br Devotion

At the end of the 2016 season, sister_morphine and Manudesbois suggested to do a play-off tournament between the 8 best Cockatrice players according to the League standings. Manudesbois took care of the organisation and he came up with two groups of 4 players where the best 2 players respectively went on to play semi-finals and finals. Since I am the player who had the most points (thanks to Bri’s streak of bad luck during the December tourneys) I wanted to reassure my title and was thinking thoroughly what to play at this prestigious tournament. I went back and forth between some decks and finally wanted to run a Devotion deck. After its breakout at the CDF I considered Affinity Atog to be the best deck in the metagame, which happens to be an awful matchup for Devotion. Devotion is capable to splash a second color though and the main use of that splash should be to enhance the Affinity matchup. The most threatening card is Ghirapur Aether Grid, it defeats Devotion all by itself. White, Green and Blue have answers to Grid (enchantment hate and Hydroblast) so they were the first contenders. Ghostly Devotion was one of the defining decks in the E2 era but I didn’t want to run the Wall + Flicker combo and Mulldrifters because I think that increases the mana curve too much and it isn’t worth it without Demonic Tutor. I tried a green splash because green has creatures that can destroy enchantments and artifacts and black can reuse creatures compared to the white spells. Wickerbough Elder is a sweet combo with Fume Spitter but you need five mana and double green to not be susceptible to Galvanic Blast which I didn’t like at all. Sylvok Replica works ok with Unearth but I couldn’t find enough other green cards that seemed important so I dismissed the plan again. I somehow remembered a red card that destroys multiple artifacts and a quick search brought me on the track of Meltdown. I even own two copies from when I started playing nearly twenty years ago (!) and the brewing was on. I started with one copy in the sideboard in an online 8-men and lost in the finals against… Affinity Atog 1-2. I quickly discovered that if I draw Meltdown I am very likely to win and if I don’t, my chances are very slim. So, I went up to two copies of Meltdown in the board and 2 copies of Beseech the Queen to have a decent chance to find one of them in a reasonable amount of time. I went back and forth with Gorilla Shamans in the board and finally decided against them. They are fine against the artifact decks but more times than not I still ended up losing to Grid after having blown off a couple of lands with the ape. Since the sideboard slots are very valuable I ended up not playing any. Pyroblast is another very good reason to play red since the blue decks are very powerful and there are lots of them in the Tier1 – 1.5 category. The only red card I decided to play maindeck is Terminate. It’s just a super solid removal spell, kills everything at instant speed and I thought it is worth it despite possible mana problems.

This is the list I ended up with:

The manabase

I want to have enough red sources to reliably cast my red spells, especially after boarding and nine was the number I ended up with. It can be costly not being able to cast Terminate in the early turns, but I run enough black removal for it to be okay. After boarding it can be important to have 2 red mana available to protect Meltdown with Pyroblast. The Ghostly Devotion decks were running 9 blue sources most of the time too. With Meltdown in the board, Prophetic Prism is not an option unfortunately. The Br Devotion deck at CDF played 4 Mountains which I dislike a lot. The deck runs a lot of double black cards (the deck is even called Devotion…) and having two mountains in the early turns can lose you the game. Besides the red lands, I only play a single Bojuka-Bog because I don’t want to have too many come-into-play-tapped lands. Gravehate is important and I can tutor it up, so I wanted to have access to one still. It could well be worth it to run a Mortuary Mire as well, which could provide lategame power in combination with the two Rakdos Carnariums. I decided against it in favour of 1 more Swamp. Another value land a lot of black decks play is Desert. It can be very powerful against Faeries, especially combined with Witches if the opponent has Favorable Winds online. A fine choice for sure, again, I gave the ability to cast all my spells the advantage.

The removal

Besides Terminate I play the full playset of Dead Weight. I like to have a couple of 1 mana removal spells against the aggressive decks and Dead Weight can kill Atog as opposed to Disfigure. It is also better against Infect, as they can’t protect with a pumpspell and it randomly destroys Wild Mongrel. I went down to 1 Chainer’s Edict, a card that I like a lot, which probably isn’t all that necessary with 4 Terminates. The mix of Fume Spitters and Witches is nothing special, as is Engineered Plague against Thopter mainly and to a lesser extent Goblins and Elves. I am running Pestilence which can be super annoying for some decks and pairs very well with Gurmag Angler and Twisted Abomination. It’s a debatable choice since it’s mostly too slow against the very aggressive decks. Since you can’t tutor for Pestilence on turn 3, I am running 1 copy of Crypt Rats too.

The creatures

The creature suite is the usual stuff, 1 Gurmag Angler is obligatory in my eyes and Twisted Abomination did a lot of work. The cycling ability is very relevant in the early game if you get stuck on mana and having a beefy creature to tutor for with 6 lands in play comes up more often than I would have thought. The regeneration ability is something we don’t see anymore but it is still very good.

The carddraw

Three carddraw spells feel fine, depending on how aggressive you expect your opponents to be, something between 2 and 4 is the right number in my opinion.

The uncommons

My version is designed around the two tutor uncommons, Beseech the Queen. It is significantly worse than Demonic Tutor but it is still a tutor effect. The Peasant metagame is defined by very swingy matchups and key cards matter a lot. During the tournament Beseech did a good job for me, mainly searching for Engineered Plague and Meltdown. The biggest downsides were the mana cost which made me build my manabase the way I did and not being able to tutor for Gurmag Angler in the midgame.

The sideboard

The sideboard is designed to give me an advantage in the most popular matchups. The maindeck of Devotion is already well prepared against many aggro strategies, so the main goal was to help against Affinity, Thopter, Faeries and other blue controldecks. The worst matchup in my opinion is MGA so I wanted to include some sort of lifegain which also helps against Burn and RDW. I decided to try out Grotesque Mutation and Mark of the Vampire. These matchups didn’t come up during the tournament fortunately so I never boarded them in. In hindsight, I think Mark is too slow. Mutation is fine but you need a creature in play, so it must be used wisely.

Tournament gameplay!

I wrote a report of my matches of the tournament and hope it is a good read. I picked some of the more interesting moments to play a little “What’s the play” game, so make sure you don’t scroll too fast if you want to make up your mind about what you would do in each situation. You are very welcome to share your thoughts in the comment section! How it actually played out is written right beneath. I saved the Cockatrice files so if you are interested, just message me and I will send them to you.

Group Stage vs. Zombie’s Thopter Foundry

Game 1: He is on the play and plays T2 Foundry. My T2 Hymn to Tourach discards Sword of the Meek, great. He doesn’t have many lands but counters my T3 Beseech and I fail to naturally draw my 1-of Plague, so he wins.

Game 2: I get to board 12 cards. Feels good. He mulls to 5 and I keep a 5 lander with Plague and Read the Bones. I bait with Read the Bones T3 which gets countered and draw into Duress which lets me resolve Plague. He doesn’t do a lot except amassing cards in his hand. He counters my Hymn and on turn 8 with 8 mana available I just run out Twisted Abomination and it resolves. He plays Angler on his turn (most likely out of the board) and Dead Weight on my zombie mutant. On my turn I draw Beseech and think about what to get. I know he has Spell Pierce in hand.

Gameplay question nr.1 : What would you get and why?

I decide to get Crypt Rats (Pestilence got boarded out) and play it the next turn. Zombie failed to draw a Counterspell so I get to blow up his Angler while regenerating my Abomination. He doesn’t draw a solution for Plague and I draw a couple more creatures to kill him with.

Game 3: I take a mulligan and keep a very reactive hand. Zombie doesn’t have his combo right away so we spend a couple of turns drawing cards, Duressing and countering. He has Sword on the battlefield since the early turns and transmutes Muddle for Foundry at some point. He doesn’t play it right away because he wants to keep counter mana up and has only 5 lands in play. The turn after he plays Foundry and passes the turn. I am in the luxurious position of having Duress, Pyroblast and Meltdown in hand. I lead with Duress, take one of his counters and play Meltdown for X=2 and protect it with Pyroblast. The game continues without any board presence, he counters my Nihil Spellbomb. I bait his Condescend with Chittering Rats and resolve a Beseech the Queen.

Gameplay question nr.2: What would you get and why?

I decide to get Plague over Nihil Spellbomb to have an answer even he draws another Sword, even if it risks him drawing a counterspell. It works out, he doesn’t draw a solution and I proceed to win the game with Twisted Abomination.

Group Stage vs. Toufmade’s Infect

Game 1: I take a mulligan and keep an ok hand without removal or red mana, of course not knowing what he’s playing. He leads with Glistener Elf, I play Witches and he attacks into my Witches, I am tapped out. I block and he doesn’t use a pumpspell and his dude just dies. I am really happy and surprised that he doesn’t have pump, as it turned out it was just a misplay. He had two more creatures in hand so he didn’t think he needs to save the Elf, but my 0/2 Witch continues to demolish him. I draw into more creatures and he can’t get through without trample.

Game 2: He mulligans and keeps a 1 lander with CC2 creatures in hand. He fails to draw a land for 2 or 3 turns and I have a solid draw with creatures, removal and Hymn and he can’t do anything.

Group Stage vs. Max’ Familiars

Game 1: He counters my T2 Hymn with Spell Snare and develops his game while I miss a land drop. I have a couple of Chittering Rats which his Mulldrifter laugh about and he draws lots of cards while I fail to find my 5th land. I manage to stick a Plague to prevent him from going off but he continues to bury me in card advantage. I survive his Mulldrifter beatdown for a long time but with very few cards left in library he is bound to draw his out – Capsize – at some point and wins.

Game 2: I get to board 11 cards, again feels nice. He mulls to 5 and hasn’t much going on. I draw my Pyroblasts and counter his carddraw, he doesn’t draw bouncelands and after a couple of attacks he is dead.

Game 3: We both have mediocre draws but I manage to counter/discard his carddraw spells and start beating him down. The first game took an eternity so we approach the end of the one hour time limit. I crack my Spellbomb to draw more action and on the second extra turn, Max finds himself in this spot.

Gameplay question nr.3: Would you cast Cloud of Faeries or cycle and why?

Max cycles and draws a bounceland which he plays and bounces Tranquil Cove back to his hand. I attack with my creatures, he blocks and falls to 7 life. My punishing topdeck is Chittering Rats so he redraws his gainland and passes the turn with 8 life and a blocker against my 4 2-power attackers. In the last extraturn I take a deep breath and draw my card for the turn. It turns out to be… Sign in Blood! Two perfect topdecks on my part secure the win and I proceed undefeated to the semi-finals!

Semifinals vs. sister_morphine’s GruTron

Game 1: We both keep 7 card hands and my draw is creature-heavy with 1 Terminate. Sister plays Urza’s Tower T1 and Ancient Stirrings T2 off a Chromatic Star and only finds another Tower, which lets me breathe a sigh of relief. T3 he uses an Expedition Map to find the second Tron piece and plays yet another Map. I prepare myself to be in trouble and hope for the Terminate being enough to punch through enough damage. At that point sister is at 16 life and I have Witches, Rager and Chittering Rats on board and another Witch, Terminate, Gray Merchant and the 5th Swamp in hand. He spends his turn to crack the map, cast Prophetic Prism and evoke a Mulldrifter and I start to think I’m favoured. Not knowing what colors he plays I decide to cast Gray Merchant after hitting him down to 11, out of fear of a sweeper like Firespout or Rolling Thunder. During his turn he cycles through some Chromatic Stars, adding red mana to his pool which confirms my suspicion of him trying to find a sweeper. He doesn’t find it though and casts Artisan of Kozilek, reviving Mulldrifter. With his last mana available he casts Crop Rotation for another Tower. During my upkeep, he casts Beast Within on my only red source to deny me access to a burnspell or Terminate off the top but I already have it in hand, so I destroy his Artisan in response and swing for lethal.

Game 2: I board Duress, Pyroblast, Meltdown and Spellbomb. He has Tron on Turn 4 via Ancient Stirrings and Expedition Map and uses Fierce Empath to tutor for an Artisan of Kozilek. I fire off a Hymn and luckily catch his Artisan and a Pulse of Murasa. I decide to keep up Pyroblast for Mulldrifter but I should have cycled Twisted Abomination because I was stuck on three lands. The turn after I do cycle it and cast Sign in Blood but I don’t find another land and he starts to cast Fangren Marauders. I can deal with one with Terminate but he hits me down to 6 and casts Maul Splicer off the top. I continue to miss my 5th land but I rip a Meltdown to deal with his Splicer Golems and cycle a Spellbomb to neutralize Fengraf but I still find no land off it and yet another Fangren Marauder finally is too much for me to deal with.

Game 3: I mulligan a 1 lander and cast Hymn turn 2 and catch Crop Rotation and Ancient Stirrings- lucky me. He has only 1 Tron piece and a map turn 3 and I find Beseech the Queen, which is the only thing I can cast turn 4 so I fire it off.

Gameplay question nr.4: What would you get with it and why?

I decide to get a Read the Bones because it provides card advantage and I don’t know what to get yet as I don’t have any real hoser against Tron. The turn after I miss with Duress (he has Crusher, Wretched Gryff and Unknown Shores in hand) and drop Angler to deliver some beats. Sister finds a second Tron piece, I hit him down to 15 and cast Read the Bones to find Rager and Duress. He plays Crusher, which I terminate and knock him down to 10 with Gray Merchant waiting patiently in my hand. I realize I failboarded and Duress and Pyroblast provide solid card disandvantage. On sister’s turn he has to decide what to play.

Gameplay question nr.5: What would you do? (no landdrop yet)

Knowing his hand, there are two possible plays. I would have cast Maul Splicer and emerged Wretched Gryff off the Splicer which costs 8 mana total, in this case 9 because he has to tap Unknown Shores for blue. He has plenty of mana to do that. The second option is to just cast Splicer and have Urza’s Tower + Fengraf ready to retrieve either Crusher or Splicer if it gets killed or chumpblocks.

Sometimes Magic is harder than it seems, especially under pressure and he overpays for Maul Splicer and doesn’t emerge the Gryff. Because there is no justice I rip Meltdown off the top (which even kills Tree of Tales) to make a profitable attack. He jumps with Splicer, I play Gray Merchant and he is down to 4 life. He can only come up with one blocker so my next attack is lethal. Nobody knows what our next draws would have been, but the correct line would have given him a good chance to win the game. I luckily reach the finals!

Finals vs. Zombie’s Thopter (again)

We decided to play best out of five for the finals, so two games preboard and up to three postboard. During the group stage I lost without sideboard and won two after sideboarding, so I’m hoping I can somehow win one of the first two games.

Game 1: Very reminiscent of the first game of the group stage, he leads with T2 Thopter Foundry and my T2 Hymn discards Sword… I can’t find Plague and lose.

Game 2: Zombie mulligans and keeps a 1 lander and counters my Hymn with Daze, which I haven’t seen in the 4 games we already played. Turn 3 I go ahead and Beseech for Plague. On Turn 4 I must decide if I want to just run it out while Zombie has UB mana available. Before boarding I only have Hymn to randomly discard his counters and he probably has mainboard Duress to take Plague away. I could wait until I have 6 lands and play around Mana Leak but he plays Daze and Condescend too and I decide to just run it out and not give him more time to find a counter. He happens to have Mana Leak unfortunately and that’s basically it already. I continue playing because I can theoretically win if he never finds Thopter Foundry. The game continues for quite a lot of turns but he eventually finds his combo and wins.

Game 3: Now the real games begin. I board my 12 sideboard cards and have to decide if I want to leave some Terminate in because of the possible Angler out of his board. I have a couple of flex slots in Witches (for Devotion, as an attacker and Innocent Blood fodder), Crypt Rats and Pestilence so I keep I think 1 Terminate in to tutor for. I lead with Duress T1 and snipe a Foundry. T2 he keeps two blue open and I decide to go for Sign in Blood instead of Hymn because I think it’s less likely he’d counter it. I draw into red mana and go for Hymn the turn after with Pyroblast backup. It rips an Angler and a Counterspell out of his hand. The next turns we trade resources, he plays another Angler which I happen to have Terminate for. He finds a Sword which he plays out and I start beating him down with Crypt Rats. I have seven lands in play, one of them is a Carnarium. I have Pestilence, Pyroblast and Plague in hand, he has two cards. He is down to 10 life, so I think I try to go for lethal with counter backup because he already has Sword in play and I don’t want to give him another out. I crack Rats for 7 so he is at three. On my turn I draw another Pyroblast and cast Pestilence. He counters and I counter back, so far so good. Then he counters my counter and I get excited and counter back, instantly noticing the misplay. This is the season finale so there are no takebacks. I can’t believe what I’ve done and shoot him down to 1 life with the 2 mana left and Pestilence dies at the end of my turn. Fortunately, he doesn’t draw another counter and I can resolve my Plague next turn. He flashes back Forbidden Alchemy and finds Foundry the turn after. Phew. He is at 1 life and I draw into a couple of creatures which he destroys, he gains a little life sacrificing his artifact lands but finally I find a Gray Merchant that finishes an awesome game.

Game 4: We both keep 7 and I have Pyroblast and Beseech but no red mana. I draw into Meltdown, which he takes away with Duress. Sign in Blood resolves and finds me another Meltdown and another Beseech! Zombie plays Foundry and I search for Plague. Zombie is stuck on 2 lands and I draw a red source and play a timewalking Chittering Rats because he has nothing to play. The turn after I play Plague with Pyroblast backup but he doesn’t have a counter anyway. I discard a Sword with hymn and exile it with Spellbomb. At an empty board he doesn’t do anything and I stay patient as well with the nuts in hand- Pyroblast, Meltdown and Beseech. I draw Rager and cast it, it resolves. Chittering Rats which I draw off it I keep in hand, playing around Condescend. My card advantage starts to kick in and he runs out of resources and doesn’t find an answer to Plague with 1 Sword already exiled. I cast Duress and he counters it with Muddle. I am thinking he maybe has another Sword in hand, protecting it from Meltdown, so I counter back because I have Bojuka Bog in hand with which I could exile his second Sword and win the game. He doesn’t have Sword in hand though. He gets my Meltdown with a Duress but the following Hymn leaves him with no cards in hand and I tutor up an Angler. He doesn’t find an answer to it and the score is tied at 2-2!

Game 5: I keep a beauty of a hand:

He takes my Duress with his and counters my Hymn but I draw into another Hymn and Meltdown. At my third turn, I’m at the following decision:

Gameplay question nr.6: What’s the play? (no landdrop yet)

I decide to go for Chittering Rats because if he counters it, I have a higher chance to resolve Hymn the next turn and if I discard a Sword, I can exile it right away, which buys me a lot of time to find and resolve a Plague. If he doesn’t have a counter it’s even better because it sets him back a turn and I can still resolve Hymn the following turn. That’s Zombie’s hand at that point:

Zombie makes the right play and lets the Rats resolve, keeping a Counterspell in hand. The outcome is still good for me, I get ahead on cards and have a clock, even if it’s very slow. He resolves his Sword and counters my Hymn. Two turns later, an interesting scenario presents itself.

Gameplay question nr.7: What’s the play?

If Zombie has nothing in hand I can just cast Meltdown and exile sword and everything is looking good. We both wouldn’t have anything on the board but I would be up on cards. I am questioning myself what I could draw off Spellbomb that could help me if he does have a counter. Duress and Pyroblast would be great. Both I want to have before I cast Meltdown so I might crack the Spellbomb right away to cast Pyroblast (I only have 1 red mana). Activating Spellbomb in response to the Sword trigger is not a factor because he has an artifact land in play to get activate Thopter in response to my Spellbomb. In hindsight I like my line, because it is the safest. I don’t draw anything anyway and go for it. Again, there is an argument for waiting, because Meltdown clears away all tokens too, but I don’t know if my chance to draw Duress or Pyroblast is higher than him drawing a Duress or counter. As we know he didn’t have anything and I melt his precious artifacts down. I start to build a clock with Merchant, Angler and finally Twisted Abomination but Zombie muddles for another Foundry. I suddenly realize how good the last Meltdown was because it also destroyed his artifact land so Zombie can’t get his combo started! He has Foundry in play and Sword in the graveyard but no other artifact to return Sword to the battlefield. I win the last game of an epic final and successfully reassure my 2016 Peasant title!

Conclusion

I am of course super happy with my deck choice; my sideboard did a great job and Meltdown was the star of this tournament. Different matchups would have changed a lot obviously, as the Affinity Atog matchup isn’t that good even with Meltdown and I didn’t face any bad matchups. Concluding this article, I think that Br Devotion is a good choice for this Peasant season E3. Depending on the expected matchups the deck can be transformed accordingly. Gorilla Shamans on top of Meltdown will improve the Affinity matchup, Deserts and Unearth + Crypt Rats will help against Faeries and Mortuary Mire goes a long way in grindier control matchups. The new Gifted Aetherborn is an interesting card and could lead to a more aggressive monoblack version with different matchups across the field. These flexible slots are one of the main reasons I enjoy playing this deck. Even the Uncommons vary between different versions although I think Ghirapur Aether Grid is played too often between Affinity Aggro and Wellspring that you can except to perform well at bigger tournaments without access to Meltdown. I am happy to discuss if you think differently and look forward to your replies!

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