Pioneer Black Devotion vs Bant Chocobos - Magic Arena Gameplay - BO3 - January 2026

Pioneer Black Devotion vs Bant Chocobos

One of my favorite cards of all time is Bloodghast! I want it to be playable in Pioneer and that's where the idea to play this deck stemmed from. While opponents are enacting their gameplan, Black Devotion is playing a sub game of adding as many black mana symbols to the battlefield as possible. The payoff for all this devotion is Gray Merchant of Asphodel which becomes a giant source of direct damage and the main way of closing out a game. In addition to Thoughtseize and Fatal Push, this deck is the best shell for Phyrexian Obliterator. I was hesitant to craft that creature as it doesn't see play anywhere else, but having four pips while being big and dumb is simply too important. There are a couple of notable exclusions in the manabase, namely Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. If you own them, play them! To offset this loss in power level I am playing with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. At some point I managed to open three copies of Leyline of the Void so I put them in the main as a way to generate free devotion as the game starts. The card also happens to hose Izzet Phoenix nice and well. The deck also runs three copies of Phyrexian Arena which generates card advantage, adds devotion, and is relatively hard to remove. The sideboard can be broken up into three chunks. Spot removal, cards that are decent versus control, and Damping Sphere which is pretty good at slowing down Prowess and Lotus Field. To make room for sideboard cards I generally board out Leyline of the Void as there are a fair number of decks that it won't do anything against. Liliana of the Veil can come out against decks that go too wide, and Thoughtseize/Phyrexian Arena can be boarded out against decks where paying life to take/draw cards is risky.

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