Hopelessly Devoted to White

Overview

I have been trying to make a white devotion deck that could hold its own in standard since Theros was spoiled; Brimaz and Heliod always looked like they were supposed to be good. I have been trying to brew a token-based approach with stuff like launch the fleet for a couple months. Occasionally, it would curve out and really wreck someone, but overall it was nowhere near a T1 deck.

Recently, Sam Black piloted this deck with success at Worlds. This deck did well because it was aimed at the current meta; Mr. Black himself said he picked it because he was expecting a lot of Abzan-Hangarback-Aggro (if every deck runs Hangarback do we need to put it in the title?) decks. Unfortunately, it did not really stand a chance against the traditional Abzan control deck that Manfield ran. All the same, the deck looked really fun and gave me a chance to run a competitive version of a deck I was already interested in.

In MTGO, I have been playing it in the constructed practice zone and in a couple 2-mans and have had mild success with it. In my experience:

• it does really well against aggro decks
• it has a fair shot against green-based ramp decks.
• it does poorly against control decks (Abzan and Sphinx's tutelage in particular)

The Deck

Here is the deck I am running:

• Creatures
• 4 Hangarback Walker
• 3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
• 2 Soldier of the Pantheon
• 2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• 4 Knight of the White Orchid
• 3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
• 4 Archangel of Tithes
• 2 Wingmate Roc
• 2 Dictate of Heliod
• Not Creatures
• 4 Mastery of the Unseen
• 3 Valorous Stance
• 1 Spear of Heliod
• 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• Lands
• 3 Windswept Heath
• 17 Plains
• 1 Foundry of the Consuls
• 3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• Sideboard
• 2 Secure the Wastes
• 3 Tragic Arrogance
• 2 Celestial Flare
• 1 Hallowed Moonlight
• 2 Surge of Righteousness
• 3 Silkwrap
• 2 Revoke Existence

Different Cards

Here are some cards that I am running that I am not noticing in the deck lists on Goldfish.

Dictate of Heliod

Dictate really helps when we play against Hangarback; having 3/3 thopters fight against 1/1 thopters feels really good. Also, the flash on this is pretty relevant; we usually leave mana up for Mastery of the Unseen anyway.
Dictate can lead to huge blowouts as a combat trick, adds well to our devotion count, and really adds value to our thopters. I am happy to run this until it rotates.

Valorous Stance

Valorous Stance has performed really well for me. It is great against control decks as a counter to removal or burn spells. It is great against decks that try to curve out against us by removing the top-end of their curve so that we can attack through their board. I really only board it out against mono-red decks since it does not hit any creatures in their deck and I am happy to have them waste a burn spell on one of my creatures instead of on my face.

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit

Anafenza is a 1-of to 0-of in most of the deck lists I have seen. Her interaction with Hangarback Walker makes her too good to not include IMO. I am thinking of bumping her up to a 3-of and at that point we likely want one or two Abzan Falconer.

Same Cards

Brimaz, King of Oreskos

I am always on the fence with Brimaz. Sometimes he does really well when he is cast on curve and other times he just absorbs removal or loses out to bigger threats like Siege Rhino or any card in a Temur deck. Playing Brimaz T3 followed by an opponent's Languish is also a terrible tempo swing against us. Brimaz is pretty great with any of the anthem affects though so I am not sure I would cut him entirely, but I think he might become a 2-of instead of a 3-of.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion

I always find myself hoping that I top-deck Elspeth. She synergizes with most of the cards in the deck: she turns on Kytheon; her tokens are hard to keep up with; especially with Archangel of Tithes,;any of the anthem effects are nuts with her tokens; chumping a token to turn on a paired Wingmate is awesome. It will be bummer to see her rotate, I hope the new Gideon can keep up.

Sideboard

Silkwrap

Silkwrap has been all-star for me. It beats Hangarback, hits everything in CoCo decks, severely punishes U/R artifact decks, and hits Jace. What else do I need?

Secure the Wastes

This token generator has been pretty effective against both control matches and aggro matches. Being able to play this and Dictate of Heliod on my opponents turn usually allows me to play around any removal they may have. Being able to create a few chump blockers or trading tokens with real creatures is a big swing.

How to Improve

I still find myself wishing I had a way to go bigger than some of the control/combo decks I have faced like U/R Sphinx Tutelage or G/W devotion or constellation. Alternatively, I wish I had a way to shut down their game plan with better answers to the core pieces of their deck.

Another Color

I think what this deck really needs is to splash another color (I think too that this will become easier once the tango lands are available).

Splash Black?

This way we would have access to Sorin and Thoughtseize. Thoughseize gives us a better way to interact with certain decks that rely heavily on single cards. Sorin gives us the ability to shift into being a token deck if we need to. If we get to play a turn with Sorin and Elspeth in play, we are able to get really far ahead.

Splash Red?

his way we would make the deck more aggressive. A lot of times this deck wins just because it curved out so well. I have been thinking of making this deck look more of a R/W aggro deck and letting the sideboard transform it into the more controlling white devotion deck it is now.

Splash Blue?

I am most interested in splashing blue. I think it gives us a lot of late game options and this deck needs a bigger late game against the controlling decks. Aetherspouts might actually be pretty great against a lot of stalled boards. Dig through time, treasure cruise, and maybe even Narset's planeswalker might be pretty valuable when games stall out and start to go long. Plus, having access to counter magic is a nice catch-all.

Wrap It Up, Jim

This deck is fun and competitive enough that I want to continue playing it. I think there are some small tweaks we can make to improve it, and I don't think we are going to lose enough during rotation and are going to gain a lot of cards from the Ally theme.

I plan on streaming a handful of games with this deck and will follow up with at least one post showing how the deck does.