Mono black demon deck focused on forcing your opponent (and yourself) to pay life or sacrifice to further your own agenda; drawing cards and putting out fat demons.
I'm trying to keep the deck under $150 but any recommendations are welcomed.
This deck was inspired by Sacrifice! Sacrifice! by Valoth and Rakdos-Hellborn by jakexdoom
Shadowborn Apostle: a 1 mana body that can lead to a search/summon while feeding the sacrifice engine. Edit: You'll rarely see the search/summon effect go off, but they are cheap human bodies. I end up using them more for what they are rather than what they do.
Skirsdag High Priest: You get a 5/5 flyer for tapping stuff your only gonna sacrifice anyway.
Harvester of Souls: draw when things die, with a 5/5 body. a lot of things should die with this deck. Edit: I put this guy in the side deck, although the effects great, his cost makes him hard to get out when you need him and instead see him late game when you need your bigger demons, not a draw card. I'd love him if he was a mana cheaper
Desecration Demon: Your opponent pretty much kills their stuff for you, or you hit them in the face.
Demon of Death's Gate: how can you say no to a name like that. A 9/9 that you can often (will pretty much always) drop for no mana. The main reason for the Shadowborns.
Indulgent Tormentor: He's a 5/3 flyer, which isn't bad, but kinda squishy. However, each turn hes on the field your either blowing something up, burning for 3, or drawing.
Ravenous Demon
: Kinda expensive for a 4/4 in this deck, but (Archdemon of Greed) is pretty cheap for a 9/9. Great target for rite of consumption.
Dark Prophecy: Doing a fair deal of sacrifice already, now you can draw for it. Edit: This card can get scary late game, but the payoff is worth it. Re-Edit: not really. lol After playing the deck more it tend to sit with it in my hand since there's better early plays and there's no control of it once it hits the field. Read the Bones is a better card for the same mana.
Quest for the Gravelord: Bodies beget a body.
Dictate of Erebos: Make your opponent feel your burden. Edit: Costs more mana than i'd like, but still cant bring myself to take it out. This is viscous when it hits the field. Edit: Run Grave Pact
alters reap: More draw! Bonus for synergies with harvester, Dictate, and Prophecy. Edit: Although it see it might find its way back in, run Signed In Blood instead. Altar's reap makes you pay a resource that you have better uses for.
Sword-Point Diplomacy: For three mana, card can either burn for 9 or let you draw 3 or anything in between. There's no 3 cards in this deck that you cant go without that doing half your opponents life wouldn't be better. Even if you're itching for a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Grave Pact, just play strategically.
Essence Harvest: Mostly a way to to stitch the wounds from slitting your wrist for your demons, but cam also do some solid damage. Edit: Couldn"t actually find this card so i'm running Rite of Consumption in its place.
Crypt of Agadeem: Things die, profit. Edit: So far this card hasn't been a huge boon, surprisingly. However it's not hurting anything so i can't see taking it out yet.
Westvale Abbey
: I honestly just love the aesthetic of this card, plus it can be an indestructible 9/7 with flying and Life link. Should be fairly easy to transform, but if not, you got land. Win/win. Edit: Ormendahl, Profane Prince doesn't come out very often, but damn is it satisfying when he does.
Notes: This Deck certainly can bleed itself out; most victories are achieved at less than 5 life. But the theme and the play style make it incredibly fun to run. Deck's with plenty of removal will laugh at Death's gate and leave you crying as you pay half life and creatures to get shit on. But this deck has monstrous flyers and not many creatures are getting over that. This could probably be made better with some of my sideboard options but I don't want to break the theme of the deck. Some nasty late game plays are dropping Death's gate when you have your enchantments out like dark prophecy, Dictate of Erebos, quest for the gravelord, or even just blood artist. Use rite of consumption on your boss monsters to get a huge life point swing with your monsters before your opponent can deal with them.
Apologies for the very likely formatting errors and for the lengthy explanation, but I like when decks are walked through. Makes for a better read and better advice.
