UB Warped Devotion

T

Terentius

Guest
Warped Devotion is an old haunt for me, from my early days of playing Magic. I wanted to see if I could do something viable with it.

Creatures: 12
4x Thing in the Ice
4x Hunted Horror
4x Hunted Phantasm

Enchantments: 4
4x Warped Devotion

Sorceries: 7
4x Hidden Strings
2x Wash Out
1x Call of the Nightwing

Instants: 16
4x Echoing Truth
4x Recoil
4x Cyclonic Rift
4x AEtherize

Lands: 21
4x Dismal Backwater
3x Dimir Guildgate
4x Lonely Sandbar
3x Barren Moor
4x Island
3x Swamp
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60 cards


All cylinders would be landing a multi-bounce effect with Warped Devotion out, especially if tokens from the Hunted creatures or elsewhere are included in the bounce, so I get board control and some hand disruption as well. I'm betting big on this strategy as opposed to effect on discard, i.e. Liliana's Caress, or Megrim for the old school. This build is all cards from 8th Edition or later; I may make an additional Warped Devotion deck using cards prior to that mark with Megrim.

I had initially wanted to keep it Horror-tribal, but I thought it would be more consistent with Hunted Phantasm for another 4 chances to combo with a multi-bounce effect. I can take the chance of Thing in the Ice transforming and bouncing Hunted Phantasm.

Other cards considered:
Perplex
Unsubstantiate
Dinrova Horror
Dissipation Field
Phyrexian Negator
Blizzard Specter
Nihilith
Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch
Sapphire Medallion
Dimir Keyrune
Other cipher spells

Problems:
  1. Low creature count, and creatures die to removal.
  2. Having trouble getting Warped Devotion out quickly. Cycle lands provide some acceleration. I have a set of Perplex and tried running it, but after discovering the transmute ability only works at sorcery speed, I wasn't feelin it. What I really need is Demonic Tutor.
  3. So far unsure on the consistency of Thing in the Ice transforming.
  4. Creeping Tar Pit is expensive.
Not that great, but it looks fun, right?
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
My friend had a Warped Devotion deck way back when the card was still new. The addition of options like Thing in the Ice and Hunted Phantasm, creatures that are themselves efficiently costed and offer powerful synergies, seems promising and wasn't really available back then. Of course, Recoil and Wash Out were key cards in his deck. Still, I can't help but feel that this deck, while superior to the one I'm thinking of, is missing something. My friend's deck had enough discard spells that his opponent's hand would quickly be emptied, and that meant Warped Devotion effectively turned bounce spells into destruction spells.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
True; since I'm not running any discard spells besides Recoil, without Warped Devotion I don't have any control besides bounce. Hopefully that will protect me long enough to finish with Hunted damage or land Awoken Horror. Again, if I could more consistently hit Warped Devotion on turn 3 or 4, it would be huge.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
This deck needs Toxic Deluge! I was sitting on one from EMA and didn't even realize how good the card was. Pay 2B and 1-3 life to wipe out all the tokens I gave you, and probably a good chunk of anything else you had, plus Thing in the Ice lives and gets an ice counter. It's also a bit pricey, so I'll proxy some for the below and see how much it tightens the deck up:

-1 Call of the Nightwing
-1 Recoil
-1 Aetherize

+3 Toxic Deluge

Hopefully the deck will also become less dependent on Warped Devotion.
 
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