Increasing Devotion – MTG Throwback Thursday (2012)

Increasing Devotion is a lot of tokens for one card…up to 15 humans for 14 mana. Though it’s cute to note that Increasing Devotion only cares about where the spell was cast from, not how it was cast, so any graveyard cast will get you the bonus Humans. Which opens up cute synergies with spells like Underworld Breach, though this is only the thirteenth most-degenerate thing you can do with the spell.

If you like going wide, this spell can help with it; five bodies in one spell is deceptively powerful, and that’s not getting into the graveyard mode. But just five 1/1 bodies is too fair for most larger formats, which constrains this spell’s efficacy overall.

Constructed: 1.75 (too slow, and too little impact, for any format it’s legal in)
Casual: 3
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 2.5
Commander: 3.25

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hello everyone and welcome back to Pojo’s Card of the Day! Today we’re taking a look at one of the the cards from the ‘Increasing’ Cycle that came out years ago. So did it increase in value since its appearance in Dark Ascension? Let’s find out.

So let’s give a little bit of history regarding this card, Flashback was one of the hallmark mechanics of the set that had really gotten a lot of players interested in this block. Snapcaster Mage showing off its stripes with amazingly efficient plays like Snapcaster into Preordain and everyone was excited as to how the increasing cycle would play out.

Unfortunately this card held little nobility during its time in standard, and not simply due to the fact that it’s flashback cost was 9 mana to make 10 1/1 dudes. Sure it was fine for the Mono White durdle decks but at that time there was another card that simply stole the spotlight. Lingering Souls. And while Increasing Devotion did its darndest to show off unfortunately Liliana of the Veil was too great with Lingering Souls for that amazing value and also the spirits had flying! So unfortunately Constructed was not where Increasing Devotion was going to show off the token generation it was made for.

Even now the card is simply outclassed by the likes of March of the Multitudes if you’re looking to power out some 1/1 weeners in the more casual of Commander Formats, and March is instant speed to boot.

The only place where this thing is interesting is in some old fashioned packdraft and even then Triple Innistrad is simply the better draft format. I could see this maybe in an Innistrad themed cube but that’s about it. In regular Cube this just doesn’t cut the mustard, heck it barely smears the mustard over sourdough for a toasted panini and that’s because of the flashback!

Constructed 1/5 – It didn’t work then, it probably wouldn’t work today if it was reprinted.

Commander 1/5 – There’s better ways to show off token generators.

Draft 3/5 – It’s decent but chances are you’d probably want Lingering Souls over this anyways.

Cube 1/5 – Not worth it here unless the Cube is pure Innistrad Themed and even then… Debatable.

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David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Increasing Devotion does exactly one thing, but it does a heck of a lot of it. Sometimes that’s enough. Its flashback cost is pretty steep, and pretty much out of the range of most aggressive white decks. Actually, it’s out of the range of a lot of midrange- and control-oriented white decks too. That doesn’t mean it’s useless; not at all, in fact. It can be hard to address in limited formats, and there are ways to get the graveyard bonus in constructed without turbo-ramping with Nyxbloom Ancient. Torrential Gearhulk is one of the best, and that’s just for starters.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander: 3/5