How does this deck do against Mono Black Devotion?

BTW +1 from me! Really nice deck!

My buddy plays Mono-Black devotion and out of the play tests, I have won roughly 70% of the time. Me and him have actually had a time where it was 5 5/5 Wurms vs 4 4/4 + Mutavault to make them 5/5 pack rats, butRootborn Defenses won me that match up. I enjoy Rootborn Defenses a lot, it has gotten me out of Supreme Verdict s and Hero's Downfall /Doom Blade for a win of the match many, many times. :P Your answer and more.

Right now i'm playing MBD but i'm just really drawn to selesnya. I really like selesnya. It's one of my favorite colour combinations, so i'm thinking about making a selesnya deck like this, but that would mean that i have to trade away my MBD deck. Otherwise i can't get my fingers on cards like Voice of Resurgence . It's so expensive so to get 4 of them, i would have to trade away my 4 Thoughtseize , where one is in foil...

What do you say? Have you played with your friends MBD? What's the most fun to play?

I personally enjoy a ton of different play styles, you can run Selesnya wo voice, just add in more aggro 1 drops in its place or something of the sort. Infact I also have a MBD deck, haha. I prefer Selesnya over my MBD, I consider it more fun simply because it has combat tricks, I LOVE combat tricks.

have you played a good bit of mono blue? last tourney kinda seemed like a fluke for that matchup. just wondering how you do without skylashers/mistcutters/last breath. i really like this build, +1

CrispyFried: Actually yes I have, I can understand how it seems that say the way I wrote it and what happened to him that day. While playtesting with my friends, the deck seemed to win 60% of the time out of 20 match ups while testing against Mono Blue. While you most likely look at the game was "He can't remove Master of Waves , how could he possibly win?" Thats actually the question I get a lot at my shop as well, until they watched the match up. With Mono Blue, unlike red which is easier to take apart honestly. the main purpose is just abusing the resources. When I won the match against mono blue that FNM, I whould have probably mentioned his board state better. Along with my one "big" one drops, he had his own biggies and devotion piling up. Soldier of the Pantheon is really a card to reckon with in a deck that can flash bestow Boon Satyr and block with a pro multicolor creature. This card is not the reason I won of course. The card that shines the most is indeed the underdog Rootborn Defenses , mainly people do not see it coming main board. As I stated in game 1 with how useful it is early on with a strong board state and the pressure that keeps on piling, they would have to be forced to say Cyclonic Rift , 80% of the time on there turn or else I get a trigger token off Voice of Resurgence , you may even be thinking about Rapid Hybridization , but that gives me a 3/3 token and when I make them indestructible with Rootborn Defenses I just got a free populate and a free 3/3 frog lizard on my side, which increases pressure greatly. When you are going against big creatures that keep on pressure with "small" creatures that become much bigger, it can cause a problem in any deck match up, ofcourse there are ways to work around it, but it has to be quick is easy to do. Selesnya is a very strong deck, that many people just push aside for all these mono color net decks and then miss out on what other colors can really do. I personally never base how a good deck is on ProTours or GrandPrixs, because in my opinion, the game of Magic is 60% deck building, 40% luck of the draw. Anyway, I hope this helped in the slightest bit on how it can and why it can against even the "best" of decks.

Also I prefer Mistcutter Hydra s and Skylasher 's in my more "rampy" aggro build that includes Gyre Sage , which is another underrated card that is actually good when abused. Last Breath is great, I actually enjoy it being used on me, because it gives me 4 life, and a G/W deck with little extra life, can actually cause more pressure, because I do not mind losing my Voice of Resurgence , in fact I run them as a distract card to deter them away from my other creatures.

Why do you prefer Boon Satyr over Loxodon Smiter ? They are same mana cost, but with the elephant you get +2 toughness and it cant be countered. Is it because of the flash? Are you using it's flash+bestow a lot? If i flash it in without bestow, it will just get killed to all creatures with power 2 or greater...Anyway, try to playtest with the elephant instead of the satyr if you haven't already done so :)

Jantz: I have 4 Loxodon Smiter s and I enjoy Boon Satyr much more, and yes its the flash bestow reason. Yes its easier removed, but end of turn 4/2 that they are now tapped out from and I can swing next turn vs a 4/4 on my turn that will most likely be killed on contact 80% of the time while entering the battlefield. With Boon Satyr I can flash bestow my 5/5 wurm with Ajani, Caller of the Pride 's double strike+flying for 18 damage, while with a giant elephant I cannot.

Makes sense. Now another question: Have you tried Scavenging Ooze in the deck? It's a really powerful card, especially if you get it out on the battlefield after a Supreme Verdict or something like that. Then you just pump it up and smash your opponent!

That is actually the point of the Boon Satyr , Advent of the Wurm and especially Rootborn Defenses . After they all die, pop in new threat that can swing right away, or they wasted a Supreme Verdict and all my creatures are fine and if lucky, new creature pops up with populate.

I'm sorry if i ask too many questions, but i really want to know more about selesnya so that i can build my own selesnya deck! And yours seem pretty thought-through so take it as a compliment!

How often do you use Fleecemane Lion 's monstrosity ability? Often enough to make it worth more than Call of the Conclave since it is possible to populate a conclave token? I know you don't have much populate in the deck but still. If you are in a match where you have to sideboard Sundering Growth in and you have a lion on the battlefield when you cast it, then you can't use the populate to anything (Unless you have a wurm or voice token ofc), but if you have a centaur token on the battlefield, then you can actually use the populate to make another 3/3!

So: The lion vs The centaur, why the lion?

I actually monstrosity it more than I would have thought, plus I really like it with Unflinching Courage . I personally don't like having too many creatures that can die to a Ratchet Bomb on the field than I need too. Granted I do have Rootborn Defenses to help stop that, but populate to me is more a side option and a good factor to just have in situations. I mainly enjoy running Call of the Conclave with a Trostani, Selesnya's Voice so I have more targets, but you can run Call of the Conclave over the lion if you wanted too. As for Sundering Growth , its basically a better Naturalize for this deck. Plus lets say Call of the Conclave token gets exiled with Detention Sphere , it's just gone entirely, but a non hexproof Fleecemane Lion can be brought back, and no you cannot keep your tokens if you destroy it prior to ETB trigger. Here is an example,

Opponent Casts Detention Sphere

It hits the Field, Naming Fleecemane Lion

Response with Sundering Growth before trigger resolves.

The Detention Sphere is destroyed, BUT the trigger still resolves and the Fleecemane Lion s are gone forever, because there is no leave the battlefield trigger to bring them back.

So always let it resolve before destroying it to get the Fleecemane Lion s back.

Here is the ruling by the way: 10/1/2012: If Detention Sphere leaves the battlefield before its enters-the-battlefield ability has resolved, its leaves-the-battlefield ability will trigger and do nothing. Then the enters-the-battlefield ability will resolve and exile the targeted nonland permanent and other permanents with that name indefinitely.

went 3-0 tonight, was a small crowd of 6 but I did not lose a single match tonight. Rootborn Defenses mainboard is definitely a star player for me now. i decided to move down to 3x Unflinching Courage and move back to 4x Banisher Priest . the priest did awesome for me tonight, especially exiling savageborn and mistcutters essentially killing them because they come back as 0/0s. good info here, thanks a lot

Very happy to hear you did well! I hope it keeps up and just in case for those bad draws, I hope the games are incredibly close and you put up a fight.

Updated for Born of the Gods.

nice deck

Thank you hatebringer79 :)

one thing to note is i feel there should always be at least 1 Pithing Needle in every sideboard.

Yeah that is easily done. I will add one...maybe two.

Pretty cool deck 1+ from me :)

Thanks mate _

Surprised no Loxodon Smiter anywhere. or Ordeal of Heliod

Normally I would have Loxodon Smiter , but Ordeal of Heliod is a maybe (But I have considered because of all the counters). With the new cards I am already seeing with Journey, this deck type is getting a major power boost.

Mending Touch becomes Ajani's Presence

2 Unflinching Courage becomes Godsend

So on and so forth...May scrap it and remake into a aggro/midrange win con when journey comes out. Still waiting on new cards though, but really loving it.