Black Devotion in Modern
There are few cards in Magic that are recognizable from single-word nicknames. Bolt. Bob. Force. Top. But of course, nothing can top the mono-black card that stole all of our hearts in Theros standard: Gary. Gary had his fair share of the spotlight in Standard, but up until now, he hadn’t really made a showing in Modern. Thankfully, three separate people have 5-0’d with a Devotion list in the past three weeks or so, making me hopeful that Gary might finally get his time to shine again. The list I’m using is from MTGO RonaldoJin, the most recent user to 5-0 with this midrange pile of black cards.
We aren’t terribly creature-heavy, but we have more than enough to put up a fight, and of course they all do what we want: get devotion. Gifted Aetherborn gives us a mini Vampire Nighthawk. Losing flying is unfortunate, but for a one mana discount, more than worth it. Deathtouch makes it very difficult to attack into, and lifelink helps create a nice buffer to keep us alive. Phyrexian Obliterator is an absolute house, giving us 4 devotion to black, as well as a quick clock that’s difficult to answer cleanly. Blocking it is dangerous, bolting it is disastrous, and attacking into it guarantees you’ll lose some permanents. Finally, we have Gary himself, who can use all those nice little black mana symbols to drain our opponent for anywhere from 2, all the way up to 20+ life, and heals us up just as much.
We have five total Lilianas, giving us extra devotion and some nice ways to grind. Liliana of the Veil lets us force our opponent to topdeck and lets us discard Lingering Souls if we don’t have the white mana to cast it, clears away the opponent’s board, and can win us the game once we get her to 6 loyalty. Liliana, the Last Hope has removal for small creatures on her +1 that doubles as a way to discourage attacks and blocks from a single slightly larger creature, and her -2 allows us to get back creatures that died earlier, or even just digging for new creatures.
Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize give us always-important hand disruption early on, and Fatal Push and Victim of Night are a nice, cheap way to answer just about anything the opponent could throw at us. Lingering Souls is an all-around great card, as evidenced by the fact that it’s the only non-black card we run, and Damnation tends to be very important in the more creature-heavy matchups that we can’t keep up with. Collective Brutality is great in a lot of matchups, letting us get multiple effects by pitching cards we don’t want in our hand at the moment, or in the best case scenario, letting us drop a Lingering Souls for us to flashback. Finally, Phyrexian Arena is a great way to get some extra card advantage and abuse the fact that Liliana is generally keeping both hands empty.
The lands are pretty straightforward here, with most of them being in the list just to cast black spells, but we also have a few fetches, two shocks, and two Isolated Chapel so you can cast Lingering Souls and sideboard cards without issue. In the sideboard, we have Damping Sphere for Tron and Phoenix, while Rest in Peace is a staple sideboard piece in white to attack graveyard decks. Stony Silence is and always has been fantastic against artifact-based strategies, and Fulminator Mage is a nice way to handle big mana strategies like Tron and Amulet, while also working against normal decks with greedy manabases. Anguished Unmaking is a great catch-all removal spell for anything you didn’t see coming, and Kambal is fantastic against decks like Storm that absolutely need to remove him before they can combo off.
Tips:
- If you have the devotion, you can use a kill spell on your own Gray Merchant on your opponent’s end step, the -2 Liliana, the Last Hope, letting you drain with him once more.
- In a tight spot where you need blockers but don’t have white mana for Lingering Souls, you can Thoughtseize or Inquisition yourself, then flashback Souls.
- Don’t be afraid to not attack with Phyrexian Obliterator. Although it is great at attacking, it also discourages attacks from your opponent much more than any deathtouch creature ever could. This doesn’t mean to never attack with it, just to know when attacking isn’t your best bet.
- It’s at least worth noting that Fulminator Mage gives you two devotion to black, so if you’re going to play a Gary and sacrifice your fulminator in the same turn, make sure you sacrifice after draining.
The deck seems pretty strong, and has a lot of nice options and room to grow still. It’s a lot of fun, and forcing your opponent into a situation where they have to block a Phyrexian Obliterator is always a good time (for the one attacking, anyway). Just getting to play a devotion list in Modern with Gary is a great feeling, but the fact that the deck feels like it can stand on its own even without the “gotcha” devotion kill just makes it that much better.
