By Shuhei Nakamura
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Shuhei Nakamura is a member of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame, former Player of the Year, and is one of just six players with more than 400 lifetime pro points.
It's true that new cards from Khans of Tarkir are rampaging about here and there showing off, but Magic is about more than just the latest set—there are discoveries waiting in the most innocuous of places. One of those is today's deck, a green-blue devotion deck.
The basic structure is straightforward: mana creatures plus large creatures, with a little bit of fetching. Now, we've seen green devotion decks before, in the pre-Khans environment. Where this deck changes things up is by adding blue and including Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.
While it's true that Yisan alone addresses pretty much everything this deck needs, it's also a fact that he needs three mana to activate his ability, and taps to do it as well, meaning you need to wait at least four turns until you can start getting big creatures. This is too slow.
What to do about this critical problem? The outside-the-box solution: activate the ability more than once per turn. Kiora's Follower is good for this, but of course you get more mileage out of Prophet of Kruphix, which untaps your lands as well.
Stephen Mann’s Green-Blue Devotion
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