GWU Devotion

Standard Gruzjmal

SCORE: 1 | 4 COMMENTS | 357 VIEWS

Game Day Champion! —April 19, 2015

I took this deck to two separate game day events, and overall it performed quite well. Prophet of Kruphix just works so well with so many of the other cards in this deck. It was definitely worth the slightly more awkward mana base to include it. Actually, I had no issues with mana that had to do with color fixing.

The first event I went to didn't go so well: Match 1 - I lost in 2 to Esper/UB control (splashing white for Dragonlord Ojutai). They were close games though, and I think I would have won the first game if I hadn't make a terrible misplay. Match 2 - Won in 3 against a GR Devotion Dragonlord Atarka deck. Match 3 - Abzan aggro. Lost game 1, just couldn't stabilize quickly enough and he had plenty of spot removal. Tied game 2. I would have won game 2 on my next turn, but we went to time. ... for some reason we only played 3 matches at this location.

Overall Score: 1/2

I had to give this deck another chance, as the first event had not even allowed me to activate Mastery of the Unseen a single time during any matchup, and I knew the deck could do better.

Second Event: Match 1 - Lost in 2 to a Sultai Reanimator deck. The first match was long and grindy and very close. The second game he curved out and I didn't draw lands. Match 2 - Lost in 2 to a GR Dragons deck. I came very close to winning both games, but he had some cool tricks that were able to take the win. ... at this point I was feeling a bit demoralized, but decided to push on ... Match 3 - Won in 2 against a black/red control deck. Match 4 - Won in 2 against another aggro/control deck.

Even though I only went 2/2, I managed to just barely make it into the top 8. The top 8 then went on to battle it out for the playmat ...

Match 5 - Won in 2 against another GR Dragons deck. Match 6 - Won in 2 against the same GR Dragons deck I had lost Match 2 against. Match 7 - Won in 2 against the same Sultai Reanimator deck I had lost Match 1 against. These games were both long and grindy and close again. But Mastery of the Unseen, Prophet of Kruphix, and Temur Sabertooth, eventually me to eventually get a better board state than my opponent and win.

Final Score: 5/2 ... I have to say, it was quite satisfying winning every single game in the top 8, especially against the same 2 people that had beaten me my first 2 matches for the Swiss section of the tournament. The deck seemed to finally come alive and start working the way it was supposed to, allowing me to create some pretty insane board states rather quickly. I look forward to taking this deck to some FNM events and seeing how it fares against other matchups.