Dovin Baan: Official Thread

Tilwin90

While I'm not a big energy fan, I decided to give Dovin Baan a shot. And while I don't use the energy in any way at this point, the cards I have in white and blue were good enough to build a decent (though not extraordinary in any way) deck. At this moment I pretty much use Dovin's first ability, having hit his third one once only...
Looking for your feedback to improve it further.

The deck:
Creatures (2):
Drowner of Hope
Gisela, the Broken Blade

Spells (3):
Deploy the Gatewatch
Descend upon the Sinful
Talent of the Telepath

Supports (5):
Hixus, Prison Warden
Suppression Bonds
Prism Array
Prairie Stream
Pyromancer's Goggles

Deck strategy:
- Once again I am abusing Deploy the Gatewatch with powerful creatures.
Gisela is a beast and her lifelink is essential for Dovin's survival. Drowner of Hope is also incredibly powerful, deploying a total of 12 power per instance on the board. And the mana gain of the Eldrazi Scions with all the expensive cards is also superb! Deploy the gatewatch into 3 drowners and you already have a stable board.

- I further considered abusing Dovin by trying to get as many deploys as possible. This lead me to the combo of Pyromancer's Goggles -> Deploy -> powerful creatures (I am sure I am not the first person thinking about this). It's working good, even though goggles sometimes ends up getting my other two spells. It's good that Dovin allows only 5 supports, otherwise only with Deploy into the deck this would be nuts!
I have the option to replace Descend upon the Sinful with another creature, but I'm not sure with Drowner/Gisela already occupying the three creature slots.

Descend upon the sinful is there to get the board clear while I try to assemble a board myself. After that, it's pretty much a dead card. Not very happy with it, I would probably replace it with Whir of Invention did I have the card, with all the great supports. Anguished Unmaking is another possible other good replacement which I don't have. If you have any other suggestions in its place, I'm all ears!
Talent of the Telepath digs early on then can also drop a desperate support in times of need (Suppression Bonds and Hixus are very fragile).

Now onto the supports... Hixus, Suppression Bonds and Prism Array keep the opponent locked down (beyond Drowner of Hope which already does that so well). So much board control on the opponent's side buys me the time I need to do all the stuff I do.

Prairie Stream is regular mana accelerant I just got yesterday and felt would be a shame not to include in the deck.

TibbyGenn

Tilwin90 wrote:

While I'm not a big energy fan, I decided to give Dovin Baan a shot. And while I don't use the energy in any way at this point, the cards I have in white and blue were good enough to build a decent (though not extraordinary in any way) deck. At this moment I pretty much use Dovin's first ability, having hit his third one once only...
Looking for your feedback to improve it further.

The deck:
Creatures (2):
Drowner of Hope
Gisela, the Broken Blade

Spells (3):
Deploy the Gatewatch
Descend upon the Sinful
Talent of the Telepath

Supports (5):
Hixus, Prison Warden
Suppression Bonds
Prism Array
Prairie Stream
Pyromancer's Goggles

Deck strategy:
- Once again I am abusing Deploy the Gatewatch with powerful creatures.
Gisela is a beast and her lifelink is essential for Dovin's survival. Drowner of Hope is also incredibly powerful, deploying a total of 12 power per instance on the board. And the mana gain of the Eldrazi Scions with all the expensive cards is also superb! Deploy the gatewatch into 3 drowners and you already have a stable board.

- I further considered abusing Dovin by trying to get as many deploys as possible. This lead me to the combo of Pyromancer's Goggles -> Deploy -> powerful creatures (I am sure I am not the first person thinking about this). It's working good, even though goggles sometimes ends up getting my other two spells. It's good that Dovin allows only 5 supports, otherwise only with Deploy into the deck this would be nuts!
I have the option to replace Descend upon the Sinful with another creature, but I'm not sure with Drowner/Gisela already occupying the three creature slots.

Descend upon the sinful is there to get the board clear while I try to assemble a board myself. After that, it's pretty much a dead card. Not very happy with it, I would probably replace it with Whir of Invention did I have the card, with all the great supports. Anguished Unmaking is another possible other good replacement which I don't have. If you have any other suggestions in its place, I'm all ears!
Talent of the Telepath digs early on then can also drop a desperate support in times of need (Suppression Bonds and Hixus are very fragile).

Now onto the supports... Hixus, Suppression Bonds and Prism Array keep the opponent locked down (beyond Drowner of Hope which already does that so well). So much board control on the opponent's side buys me the time I need to do all the stuff I do.

Prairie Stream is regular mana accelerant I just got yesterday and felt would be a shame not to include in the deck.

Your deck is pretty obscene, I think I may have played you a couple of times

Thopter Spy Network + Drowner + any bunch of supports is a hardish lock
Silverstrike works well to reduce your spell count if you just want to hit deploy each time with goggles.
e.g. add 2 more creatures, so Deploy is your only spell, Startled Awake, Emrakul and Decimator are good here.
Exert Influence is just an obscene card as well.
I also like Quarantine Field in this deck, since deploy plays through it.

try:
Decimator
Gisela
Drowner
Startled Awake

Deploy

Goggles
Silverstrike
Hixus
Thopter Spy Network
Prairie Stream

Zustel1

I'm using this deck especially for boss fights. Haven't lost once with this in the third node in RatC. Against Tezzeret you steal his awesome Construct with Confiscation Coup and disable his with Deadlock Trap. With his first ability for the Energize 4 you can always cast Confiscation Coup. I usually have Baral, his Construct and Moon Prison on my side of the field. Moon Prison boosted with Saheeli's Artistry is equal to all your hand being free cast.
And then as soon as possible cast his third ability. Managed to beat Tezzeret in 7 rounds ^^
Depending on the situation his second ability is also useful.

Creatures
Baral, Chief of Compliance

Spells
Talent of the Telepath
Imprisoned in the Moon
Confiscation Coup
Day's Undoing
Saheeli's Artistry

Supports
Insidious Will
Gonti's Aether Heart
Era of Innovation
Deadlock Trap

Tilwin90

TibbyGenn wrote:

Your deck is pretty obscene, I think I may have played you a couple of times

Thopter Spy Network + Drowner + any bunch of supports is a hardish lock
Silverstrike works well to reduce your spell count if you just want to hit deploy each time with goggles.
e.g. add 2 more creatures, so Deploy is your only spell, Startled Awake, Emrakul and Decimator are good here.
Exert Influence is just an obscene card as well.
I also like Quarantine Field in this deck, since deploy plays through it.

try:
Decimator
Gisela
Drowner
Startled Awake

Deploy

Goggles
Silverstrike
Hixus
Thopter Spy Network
Prairie Stream

He-hey, thanks for the feedback. Indeed, there are certain changes that can be done, and that I am keeping in mind.
The most recent rare I got from a random Kaladesh booster (quite a surprise really) was [card]Whir of Invention[/card]. When it hits Goggles that in turn hits Deploys, it does get really obscene. And I bet even brainless as the AI is, when it hits it destroys the opponent (one of those ****?! moments).
That being said, I cannot reduce my spells count any more, and I will explain why (because the deck was intended to be way more obscene...)
- You are limited to 6 supports. If you count the supports you will see I have exactly 6. Perhaps not the best supports, I agree, I'll get back to that (cause Hixus and Suppresions are SO fragile).
- For deploy it's unproductive to have more than 3 creatures. You will end up getting multiples of it thanks to Goggles and you will be stuck to removing stuff from the field or just bypassing deploy advantage by not getting creatures onto the battlefield from it. Big boo-hoo.

Gisela and Drowner are the best creatures I have in this. Gisela because of lifelink, Drowner because it plays both disabler and defender. Hardcasting it is not that big of a deal to get both the advantages.
That being said, I agree Decimator of the Provinces and Startled Awake are great contenders. Unfortunately... I own neither of them (freaking mythics).

Silverstrike is fine, though it doesn't excite me in any way. It's removal, sure, and I lack that, but I'd just rather have something more powerful in that spot if it were to have removal.
Thopter Spy Network is one fantastic support had I had it in my possession. Once again... don't. Just like Day's Undoing it's one of the two dream cards from origins I don't have (in spite of having most rares from the set already...). Keep in mind though that Thopter Spy Network limits your usage of creatures due to Deploy the Gatewatch. Having it compete with Drowner is not that productive... unless it's the only "creatures" I use. Or maybe Gisela & Hangarback Walker, it's an option.

What I would really like to include in the deck if I got my hands on is Anguished Unmaking. The day I get that card I will be super happy!

So yeah, there are many ways to play Dovin, it's a very obscene planeswalker with some very nasty controlling strategies. Looking forward to see what other cards I drop and what other decks people provide around here.

Cheers!

Magog

My new deck for playing Standard:

Creatures:
Shimmerscale Drake

Supports:
Drake Haven
New Perspectives
Fetid Pools
Cast Out
Sphinx's Tutelage

Spells:
Floodwaters
Forsake the Worldly
Renewed Faith
Compelling Argument

Cycle through to put out Drake Haven and New Perspectives.  Cast Out for locking down your enemy's creatures, and Forsake the Worldly is great for support destruction.  Other cards in there are more situational or in there solely for cycling purposes.  Sphinx's Tutelage is good for slowing down your opponent, but I may swap it out for another cycling card to reduce the risk of deck failure.

The only sad thing is that it almost completely ignores his abilities (except for the first, free mana is always nice), the power of this deck comes solely from the combination of blue and white.

arNero

I just ran into this tinikitty broken Dovin lockdown deck that runs:

Starfield
Insidious Will
Hixus

I know many people have been SCREAMING to have Hixus nerfed, but what about the other two?

Tilwin90

[arNero] said:

I just ran into this tinikitty broken Dovin lockdown deck that runs:

Starfield
Insidious Will
Hixus

I know many people have been SCREAMING to have Hixus nerfed, but what about the other two?

Add Gideon's Intervention and Suppression Bonds/Claustrophobia for full "****"neckss.

csonic

Any new decks from people since the release of Kaladesh?

Magog

csonic said:

Any new decks from people since the release of Kaladesh?

The Standard deck I described a few posts up is post Kaladesh and still very valid.

csonic

Magog said:

csonic said:

Any new decks from people since the release of Kaladesh?

The Standard deck I described a few posts up is post Kaladesh and still very valid.

Thanks.  Trying to find decks without Drake or New Perspectives...both hard to come by. :-(

Doomstat

May I just say that losing to Starfield of Nyx/Omniscience is not very enjoyable. That is all.