Mono-Black Devotion
Owen Turtenwald
1st Place at Super Sunday Series Championship on 2/9/2014
The creatures all remain the same with Pack Rat into Nightveil Specter into Desecration Demon into Gray Merchant of Asphodel working up the curve. The manabase also remains entirely unchanging with full sets of Mutavault which double in the deck as rats to bolster Pack Rat and Temple of Deceit the chosen Scry land although the deck doesn’t run any blue spells per se. The draw/discard package again is no different with Underworld Connections to not only fuel the hand but also devotion count and Thoughtseize which is perhaps the most powerful turn one play in Standard at the moment. Now where we find the changes are in the removal suite that still has a full set of Hero’s Downfall but has eschewed Pharika’s Cure and scaled Devour Flesh down to two in order to squeeze in Born of the Gods new offering Bile Blight.
Creatures (16)
Other Spells (18)
Sideboard
Owen Turtenwald takes down the first standard tourney of the year with what is becoming his stock Mono-Black Devotion. What an excellent way for him to start off 2014 after having such an incredible run last year! Owen won two GPs back 2 back in completely different formats last November, one of them here using a solid Mono-Black Devotion build. There were also two winners at the SCG LA in December here, one from the Standard Open and the other the Invitational mixed Legacy with Standard. When we compare Owen’s list with the last three we showcased, we see it’s mostly streamlining the list to fight the metagame. He removed Erebos, God of the Dead from the main and opted for 3 in the sideboard, which is strong card advantage against control decks and stops life gain from Sphinx’s revelation. Adding more Pharika’s Cure against aggro decks like White Weenie and RDW to both remove and heal back a few life points, and finally a full set of Devour Flesh which is supremely useful against Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Mono Black Devotion shows that it is still one of the biggest contenders in the current Standard meta. I can’t wait to see how it holds up and gets further tweaked once Born of the Gods is released.
WOW !!! A huge congrats to Owen T with his back to back GP titles in two wildly different formats. This deck that he used to win the Standard GP was a real beaut to watch him pilot. The true MVP of this deck is a card that most held as an overpowered limited card, but not a huge constructed powerhouse. Owen showed how crazy Pack Rat can really play. A typical opening of turn one Thoughtseize into turn two Pack Rat often meant you were going to face down a plethora of rats in the next few turns, and activating Mutavaults buffs them as they are also rats. Not that this was the only line of play as turn three would often see Specter, turn four Demon and then turn five could have a potential 8 devotion Gray Merchant. And the one of Erebos is good for some card advantage but amazing at stopping opponents from regaining lost life, especially in the mirror match from their Gray Merchants. A full set of Underworld Connections makes sure that there is a steady stream of cards flowing to your hands at the cost of some minimal life points. The rest of the deck is a very powerful removal suite with Hero’s Downfall, Devour Flesh, Doom Blade and Ultimate Price to ensure there isn’t heavy resistance against your heavy beaters.
10 creatures
30 other spells
