Theros - Gods - BLUE!

Editor's note:
From the Theros FAQ:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/faq/ths
Hybrid mana symbols, monocolored hybrid mana symbols, and Phyrexian mana symbols DO count toward your devotion to their color(s).

The second mechanic from Theros that really gets me excited is Devotion, because it's a mechanic I've thought about long before the release of Theros, and it makes me want to do strange things like try to break the mechanic by utilizing permanents that do not suffer from the major disadvantage of the mechanic (flooding the board, and getting destroyed by "sweeper" effects like Mutilate or Supreme Verdict)

We can work around this by utilizing enchantments, planeswalkers, artifacts, which will stick around after those effects.  We can also use powerful creatures like Boros Reckoner, Burning Tree Emissary, or  Nightveil Spectre, which can actually go in quite a few color combinations, and get us 75% of the way there for god-activating purposes. (require 5 devotion, but all come with one symbol already)

The easiest gods to activate are the red and green ones, because in those decks, you will almost by definition have more creatures as part of your normal strategy.

This is all well and good, but these gods aren't all that exciting to me.  They cost 4, and their stats aren't that impressive.  Heck, you could just cast a 5/5 for 4 any number of ways these days, and their abilities aren't that exciting.  They help prevent flood, but I'd rather be powering in to more and more creatures (to ensure these guys are turned on.  Both of the static abilities are good, but in general require follow-up to be effective.  (The creatures that matter to give trample are cast after Nylea (who doesn't give herself trample), and the creatures most effective to be cast after Purphoros are your little guys, which you've already cast.

In general, people are pretty excited about the White god:

But most of the shells I see him put into have no way of activating his devotion.  He's just a creature factory.  8 mana for a 2/1 is not exactly a great deal (and the tokens don't turn the god on, which is flavor fail to me).  Now, to be sure, this is a quite reasonable activated ability, that doesn't overextend you card-wise (though surely tempo-wise with the large mana investment)

Granting vigilance with the only creatures in your deck being tokens or token generators (you likely have the new Elspeth in this deck too) is not too exciting, so this mostly counts as a creature generator, not a creature pumper.

The black god is also getting some press:

Black is set up the most to turn on devotion well, with various black-intensive enchantments that would work well to activate Erebos.  However, his abilities don't exactly keep you alive, nor do said enchantments like Dark Prophecy or Underworld Connections.   You have a reasonable shot at just being run over by an aggressive deck before this guy (or your other enchantments) even matter, so I'm a bit skeptical that he does enough.  He's also representing the only color whose god + weapon BOTH cost 4 (and neither is particularly speedy)

Overall, he just seems too slow.

The god I'm most excited about at this point is actually the blue one

Thassa has several advantages over the other gods:
1) She's the cheapest.  You could be swinging with her, before the other gods are even awake (turn 4)
2) Her stats are really incredible for her casting cost.  5/5 for 3 is way better than +1 to power or toughness on that for +1 mana.
3) Her static ability is going to be relevant even if you have NOTHING ELSE going on (the worst case scenario).
4) Her static has the highest chance of turning herself on. None of the other god's static abilities do anything at all to help activate them.
5) Her static is one of the best for an aggressive-minded deck, because it lets you play lands to hit your drops, without being flooded late-game.  Aggressive decks are probably the best place for gods, because it's the easiest way to turn them on.
6) Her activated ability means she's the only god here who can actually do damage against an opposing board presence (god or no god)
7) Her activated ability is also the best to target herself with.
8) Her activated ability does the best with "saboteur" creatures (on combat damage to opponent), which tend to be pretty strong, especially in blue, if you can get them through.
9) Her static is the best way to get rid of more copies of herself (by not drawing them), which is a problem for these relatively hard-to-deal-with cards.

So, what are the questions Thassa poses to us?

How do we turn her on?
The Theros set itself is pretty god-awful for turning Thassa on.  It has few double-colored creatures, few enchantments that you'd want to play.  It mainly has a bunch of spells (which do nothing for devotion), a bunch of terrible 4-drops, and a few monstrous creatures (which don't combo very well with activating Thassa, since you spend a bunch of mana but don't increase your blue count).  Thassa will help you find your mana to turn these huge drops on, but that's not that exciting.

Thassa's weapon does work pretty well with her.  It does a pretty good job of turning her on (3drop Thassa into 4drop Bident, into attack on turn 4 if you have two other devotion).  This puts the opponent into chump-block mode as early as turn 4, and on later turns, Thassa's activated ability won't let them chump.

However, thankfully, we aren't just reliant on this single set to find good permanents, we just came out of a block that was very color-intensive, and also thankfully, very hybrid-color-intensive.

The easy part, creatures:

Nightveil Specter is a pretty awesome creature.  It has evasion, it doesn't cost too much, and it provides a ton of devotion towards swinging with your Thassa.  It also means you're likely to have some lands to activate Thassa's ability, to get the Specter through in future turns.  This is an easy four-of.

Frostburn Weird is another exceptional creature.  It's very difficult to kill, and it has a ton of stat for it's cost, especially for a blue creature.  Unblockability is another solid feature for this creature, who holds the fort for you, then starts swinging for 4 a turn.  Not bad at all for a 2-drop.  I'd play eight if I could.

Unfortunately, that's where the love for playable omni-color hybrid stops.

It's important to remember that including these two creatures in our deck commits us NOT AT ALL to playing either red or black.  Dimir Guildgate doesn't help cast Nightveil Specter more than Basic Island, or Azorious (UW) Guildgate for that matter.  All it means is that we won't be playing any basic lands of any splash color we might have.  As long as those lands tap for blue, we're good to go to cast either of these spells.

The hard part, non-creatures:
We've already mentioned the Bident above, but that's not a card you can play four of, or probably even three, because it's legendary and doesn't do anything on it's own.  So where else can we find sources of non-creature devotion?

Claustrophobia is a good way to lock down a problematic creature, or even god with enough devotion.  Three is about the limit to pay for this kind of effect, and it will stick around unless your opponent kills their own creature off.  This doesn't work well against wrath effects, but it does lock their guy down, and that's about as much as you can expect out of blue removal.  Three is probably as many as you'd want of this type of thing main-deck.

These really are the best options we have for turning Thassa on, and they all work pretty darn well, without over-committing ourselves to the current board state.

How do we be aggressive with her?
We've talked about how we want to be aggressive with Thassa.  We want to have creatures in play to make unblockable, and we want to turn her on ASAP so we can start smashing for 5 and scrying lands we don't need to the bottom.

So we need some early creatures, to beef up our offense, and add to our early devotion.

I'm excited to play with Cloudfin Raptor.  It has the potential to get huge in our deck already, with Frostburn Weird and Nightveil Spectre, as well as most any other creature we'd play, pumping it up into the two power range, which is where we need to be.

Judge's Familiar I was less excited about, but we really need low drops, and gatherer searches for one drop blue creatures comes up VERY short.  The best you can hope for is really a 1/1 flyer with an ability, and Judge's Familiar has a better ability than Winged Sliver, or the Izzet creatures (which want you to play a bunch of spells, not creatures, for marginal effect.  It'd also be possible to minimize the Judge's Familiar presence, and just rely more on our two-drops.

I wish Faerie Imposter could bounce itself, because that would make for some awesome turn 2's with Cloudfin Raptor, but that's not to be.  (And this deck doesn't have much in the way of comes-into-play for the Imposter to reuse)

In the mono-blue realm, we have Vaporkin, and the sideboard card Tidebinder Mage.  Vaporkin has evasion, which is what we're looking for.  Tidebinder Mage is going to be awesome out of the sideboard.

If we consider Green as our splash (Remember, Simic Guildgate casts Frostburn Weird and Nightveil Specter just fine), we get the potential for Frilled Oculus and Zamec Guildmage.

I really like Frilled Oculus, because it's going to evolve Cloudfin just like any 2-power creature.  It's cast-able without your splash, and it can use your extra mana at quite a good rate to do some damage.  It's also pretty awesome at blocking early, which, along with Frostburn Weird, gives us a pretty solid lock-down on opposing aggressive decks.

Zamec Guildmage is a fine one-of, but I wouldn't go much past that.  I don't think we'll reliably have untapped Green on turn 2, or enough green to activate it's abilities too many times to warrant playing more of him, but he's great flood-mitigation.  He also helps your 1-drops be less dead if you have them after your opening hand, or if they get bounced, etc.

Three-drops are a bit lacking for blue, but that's where we're dropping Thassa to hedge wrath, Claustrophobia to clear away a blocker, or Spectre to deploy a strong threat.

There really aren't any strong mono-blue options, but perhaps Beetleform Mage, Drakewing Krasis, or Elusive Krasis are worth investigating.  I don't like having a Green three-drop though, because having untapped green on turn 3 is hard with our extensive 2-drop collection.  Having it on 4 is quite a bit easier...

How do we have a late game?
Thassa's Scry helps us still be drawing good stuff late, but we don't want to be totally dead if the game goes to turn 6, or if we don't have Thassa (she is legendary after all).

So what can we do about that?

Speaking of Green on four, and speaking of ways to make your one-drops better late-game, Master Biomancer is a card that can get pretty crazy.  Speaking of ways to make Master Biomancer crazy, take a look at Master of Waves.

Master of Waves pays you off for your devotion to Blue, and randomly is awesome against Red.

Master Biomancer is also pretty solid if it get's going.  It's also possible that since we're providing some solid pressure from our early creatures, the enemy may be out of their targetted removal by the time this guy hits the board (post-wrath likely)

Neither of these turn on Thassa particularly well, but Water Servant and Archeomancer may be the only 4-drop creatures that have a double-blue casting cost left in the format, and neither of those are exactly constructed powerhouses.

Both of these are good in multiples (second Biomancer gets insane, second MoWaves keeps the other's elementals alive if the first is killed...), and with each other, but they are both four-drops, so we can't go too crazy here, especially if we include a Bident or two as wrath-protection.

Vaporkin is also an elemental, for what that's worth (almost nothing)

How do we not get destroyed by wraths?
Thassa and Bident help a bit here, but these are legendary permanents, so we can't over-commit in deck-space there as well.  Claustrophobia helps us get devotion without creatures

Jace 5 seems pretty darn awesome against "control decks" sporting these wraths, and gives us a way to quickly close out the game against them.  We also have a metric ton of creatures to block with to keep his "0" grinding our opponent to insanity..  Jace AoT is less intriguing for an aggro deck, but is a bit cheaper.

I don't know how many if any of these should be main-deck, since they don't go with the main game-plan of the deck, but they could be strong out of the sideboard.

This is the last piece of technology I've been considering.  It seems strange, but equipment right now is absolutely terrible.  The Saber however, does a pretty passable Bonesplitter impression in this deck.  It is a one-drop, so it fills in our curve, and is Rancor-like, in that it gives us evasive power (more because our creatures are evasive than due to trample), and doesn't walk us into wrath effects.

Do we want any spells?

We're playing some evolve guys, and have a partial devotion strategy, so having non-creatures is a real cost in our deck.
We also have a ton of mana-sinks to turn our excess lands into damage to our opponent.  This makes "holding up counters" pretty awkward.
We also have a fair chunk of evasion already, so bounce cards like Cyclonic Rift are good for racing, but don't help our guys get through as much as just turning them sideways does.

Mizzium Skin does quite a bit, for a very low cost (1, or maybe 2 mana).  A card like Dispel or Negate might be conditionally better against sacrifice effects, planeswalkers, or (non-Supreme Verdict) sweepers, which is a real consideration, but Mizzium Skin seems like it wins the "efficiency" race, allowing us to develop our board on any turn before turn 6 or so, without having to commit to leaving mana up to protect our guys.

I think having up to 4 of this kind of effect is going to be pretty strong.  It won't dilute our strategy too much, and give us some protection.  Whether this is in the main or side, or how many we play is an issue up for discussion. (Also, the Judge's Familiar count could impact this)

So, a decklist?

Creatures: 26
4x Cloudfin Raptor
2x Judge's Familiar
4x Frostburn Wierd
4x Frilled Oculus
1x Zamec Guildmage
4x Nightveil Specter
3x Master Biomancer3x Master of Waves

Thassas: 4
4x Thassa

Permanents: 5
2x Claustrophobia
2x Civic Saber
1x Bident of Thassa

Spells: 2
1x Mizzium Skin
1x Negate

Lands: 24
4x Simic Guildgate
4x Temple of Mystery
4x Breeding Pool
12x Island

Sideboard:
Tidebinder Mages (R/G)
Jace, Memory Adepts (Sweepers)
Master of Waves (R)
Negate/Mizz Skin (Control, targetted removal)
Sensory Deprivation?  (Aggro)
(Needs work)

Mana curve:
1: 9
2: 10
3: 10
4: 7


I want more of all the non-creatures, but I don't know if I can afford it.

Getting excited about Theros. (Ember Swallower)

So, it's been a while (only 6 months!), but with new sets going out, it certainly gets the creative juices flowing.

The first mechanic from Theros I'm interested in is Monstrous.  Or more particularly, one specific monstrous card

This card makes me really excited.  The base rate on this creature is pretty good, with power equal to it's casting cost, and a toughness that survives any sort of damage-based removal.  This particular implementation of the Monstrous mechanic that on it's face is symmetrical, but in actually, it is anything but.  You get to build your deck with it in mind, with mana acceleration from Xenagos, or mana creatures (which also work well together to get the 4-drops out faster, and power you up to 7 mana)

Turn 3 Xenagos, Turn 4 Ember Swallower, Turn 5 Activate Ember Swallower is something we can do with only 3 land, Xenagos, any mana creature, and Ember Swallower.  We can even sustain the loss of one of the satyrs with just drawing a 4th land.

Wrath against that board position (turn 4, or never after they lose 3 lands) is not even that devastating, because you still have Xenagos, who'll be ready to punch them in the face the next turn, or accelerate out other monstrous threats.


I'll have to think about this a bit more before I put out a full decklist, because there is a certain amount of conflict between the cards.  You want a lot of creatures, but you don't want to die to wrath effects.  You will have a ton of mana, but you want to have action even if things aren't operating at full power (a reason I like Monstrosity so much, you can run it out earlier)

4x Mizzium Mortars (We have a board presence, so it works well, and we'll have the 6 mana)

4x Xenagos

4x Sylvan Caryatid
4x ZurTa Druid/Gyre Sage

4x Ember Swallower
4x Kalonian Hydra

Red Hammer?
Some huge green creatures or planeswalkers?

12x RG dual lands (shock, tap, scry - CIPT is not a huge downside, since we'll primarily have 2 drops over 1 drops)
12-16 basic forest/mountain