MOM's Daily Deck Tech: Battle for Devotion with Polukranos

We take a quick look at a deck featuring the latest additions from March of the Machine every workday throughout the rest of April. Pioneer's Green Devotion doesn't have all that many flex slots. Too bad the new set brings a total of three cards vying to fill them. Let the battles begin!

invasion of polukranos

As one would expect from a deck thus designated, Green Devotion is a loyal and dependable partner. It doesn't just pick up random tricks every week or change its style with the season. About 57 main-deck cards have proven all but nonnegotiable. In the past the remaining slots often went to some combination of and , , , or . More recently, successful lists have favored and .

Now it may be time to replace a single with . The back side is largely irrelevant. In fact, it's important to note that all transformation diminishes devotion. (While the transformed version retains its mana value, mana symbols stay confined to the front side.) Looking five cards deep instead of three is a big advantage but probably not by itself worth paying twice the price. However, this is not the only benefit. Another is reducing the impact of the legendary rule: Casting two Oaths yields one devotion, whereas Oath plus Invasion of Ixalan equals two.

is another maybe, mainly for the flexibility. It's more powerful at more mana but also quite decent at three. Using it to find a second Elf on turn two sets up the possibility of a five-mana play on turn three while also bringing the devotion total to four. So far it was usually one or the other. For five mana the battle adds five devotion, which the deck couldn't do yet with a single spell either, not to mention this is split up across two permanents.

polukranos reborn polukranos, engine of ruin

Nevertheless the battles still have to prove themselves, whereas one battle cruiser is almost certain to claim a couple of spots. does it all: The ability to deploy a massive reach blocker on turn two completely changes the dynamic of the Spirits matchup. Against Angels it should buy at least one additional turn to assemble the combo. Another early roadblock helps beat red decks, and so do the threat and reality of transformation. Polukranos evades removal like and, for what it's still worth, . Even more generally it adds a little to the number of times triggers and a lot to the amount of mana generates.

Many old alternatives did one or some of these things. But only new Polukranos does it all.

Green Devotion, Pioneer
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