Champion’s Deck

Master of Waves - mono-blue devotion

Mono-Blue Devotion by Collin Rountree

1st Place at StarCityGames.com Standard Open on 8/2/2014
With what became an inevitable conclusion with a mirror match final Mono-Blue Devotion reared its ugly head again to take down the Open in Dallas this weekend. The deck was obviously well positioned against the field as four copies managed to eke into the top 8. The more telling story is that with nothing added from Magic 2015 it was clearly already at its pinnacle with this standard configuration having ravaged the meta since it appeared after the release of Theros.

 

Although this is a blue deck there is no real Control element and it is firmly entrenched in the Aggro camp. It uses a very efficient curve to clutter the board with threats building to a inevitable conclusion. We start up the curve with two one drop flyers in Cloudfin Raptor that is able to grow over the first few turns into a sizable machine and Judge’s Familiar who sits around unimposingly waiting for that moment your opponent forgets that he is there to ruin his casting of a non-creature spell. Next at two there is Frostburn Weird which pulls double duty as a great wall or efficient ground pounder and Tidebinder Mage which is integral to lockdown the large creatures from GR/Jund Monsters, both adding two Devotion to the count. The next creature we have is Nightveil Specter which can be very useful as a threat in the air and will very often be able to strip away useful cards that your opponent would like to draw after a Scry, while adding on its own a full three to your Devotion. All of this Devotion then comes into play first with the other three drop Thassa, God of the Sea to turn her on for attacking or blocking but having her Scry every turn goes miles in helping you close out the victory in a timely fashion. The last creature at four is also looking at the Devotion when Master of Waves enters the battlefield to see just how many friends it’s inviting to the party. As a mono-colored deck it is able to include a full set of Mutavault into the manabase to ensure even after sorcery speed sweepers there is still pressure against the enemies life total and as a bonus also receive the Masters pump. As additional devotion and as a pseudo-removal spell there is a pair of Domestication. As far as the other spells there is a trio of Rapid Hybridization to flip huge problems into manageable Frog Lizards and also a pair of Cyclonic Rift which can often just seal the game once you hit that seventh land you needed to end a stall by sweeping the other side of the board but can also just bounce back one pesky blocker preventing you from victory.

 

Mono-blue devotion has time and time again proven that it is a highly efficient weapon to ruin your opponents day. If you are looking for a deck to rock your WMCQ then this is definitely one that you should highly consider. And on the flip side, if you aren’t going to be playing this deck then be certain to get some reps against it as you’ll almost certainly be facing off against it in a non-zero amount of rounds.
Eric J Seltzer
@ejseltzer on Twitter
Email: ejseltzer@hotmail.com