Okay, it's me again with a "could this card be actually really good?"-cases
I mean, in a deck with lots of tokens and/or some recurable creatures, this could save many lives and make combat a hell for your opponent, right?
I like it a lot, but it's very environment specific.
Originally, I had it in my cube for a 1.5-2.5 year (?) stretch 5ish years ago when I wanted access to more sac outlets. This was before the influx of better sac outlets like
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim,
Hidden Stockpile, and
Yahenni, Undying Partisan when we were still floundering around with
Cartel Aristocrat.
As we got more outlets, it became a little less necessary and I decided it was also too hit or miss. Not enough decks were interested in it and sometimes it was a little too egregious with
Hero of Bladehold.
About 1-2 years later, I brought it back, deciding it could be a good fit again. I was no longer running
Hero of Bladehold and the remaining token making attackers (
Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Goblin Rabblemaster, and Hanweir Garrison) made for much more reasonable combos. I also had a renewed desire for sac outlets (I forget why) and a new push in Naya for Voltron style decks which wanted more protection effects. If I remember correctly, I think the quality of cubeable/maindeckable enchantment destruction also got better in that time, which also kept it in check more.
Now, It's still in my cube and I've been happy to have it.
I feel like I'd just rather build around
Angelic Renewal if I'm looking for that kind of effect.
Fanatical Devotion is terrible when you're behind and Renewal can help you get free ETB triggers.
the way that Fanatical Devotion plays is you win every combat, they can't block, and your creatures die in order from smallest to biggest, except if your opponent has a wrath, in which case, they kill only half of your creatures.
It is not fun! Also it isn't that strong, so you have a shitty effect you can't even build a deck around!!!
I think it's just a different style of card. It's less of a build around and more of utility tool that ties things together for certain kinds of decks (mainly aristocrats and voltrons, but can be fine in just any token heavy deck). Agree it's not good from behind, but I don't think it's terrible either. You have not be completely behind (such as down to 1 creature), but if you have a few blockers and can keep some alive for more chumps at the very least.
I haven't found it super unfun to play against, I think? Or at least I can't remember any bad experiences? Maybe sample size is too low? It might also be the case that it's less of a problem in my cube because there are more ways of going over the top of it.