You may ask: "Shadowborn Apostle deck without demons? Are you insane?!" My answer: "Yes."
Although I am mildly insane (got Noggin Whack-ed by a friend), I have come up with a brew for an inventive and strange deck that could potentially be powerful (at least in casual). It's a combo-esque zombie aggro deck, with a pinch of disruption, life gain, and reanimation. It is surprisingly resilient to most disruption, being able to recover quickly and easily. It unfortunately trades some speed for this resistance.
CARD BREAKDOWN!!
Rotlung Reanimator and Xathrid Necromancer: These are the engines. These cards MUST see play; at least one of them. Each time an apostle dies, you get a 2/2 zombie in its place. If you have multiple of these, you get multiple zombies.
Shadowborn Apostle: Let's look at what these do.
1/1 for B. On par p/t to mana ratio.
You may have any number of them in your deck. That's nice, but there are plenty of 1/1 for ones, or better. Who cares.
B, Sac six apostles, search for a demon creature card and put it on the battlefield. Aha! Here it is, the great ability that makes these not just another trash common! Massive demons coming out so quickly, this ability is great! Oh wait, there aren't any demons in the deck... so they just sac themselves, and shuffle. I almost thought the card was good in the deck for a second. I suppose cheap critters that kill themselves could be nice, but there are so many others that do it better. Oh wait, what's this?
Creature - Human Cleric. Woah! This here. This is why the apostles are so friggin good. Whenever one of them die, they'll get back up from /both/ the Reanimator or Necromancer. Very few creatures are human clerics, even fewer are one mana, and none can both attack and sac themselves. This is why apostle can be without demons, and why this deck can work.
Cemetery Reaper: 2/2 zombie lord for three. It grants a +1/+1 bonus to all of our tokens, and can produce more tokens on its own. Furthermore, he screws with our opponent's graveyard. Very useful.
Deathgreeter: One drop 1/1 human, so it works with the Necromancer. Its real job, however, is to keep us alive. Each time a creature dies, we gain a life. Its no Soul Warden, but it certainly works, especially with all the sacrificing we will be doing.
Immortal Servitude: Once your clerics have been killed or sacrificed for the first time, have them do it again for only four mana! How's that for unfair? Mass ressurect all of your creatures (which have already been replaced) for only four? Borderline broken. At four, you return all of your fodder, at six you get back everything. Its wonderful.
Tragic Slip: Removal, plain and simple. It is exceedingly easy to drop a creature, and rarely will the loss negatively affect you. -13/-13 is more than enough to kill off whatever you need to, including indestructible things.
Crypt of Agadeem: This card is incredibly powerful for ramping out mana. Our graveyard fills quickly, and the Crypt powers up. The surplus mana allows us to play multiple creatures, activate our Cemetery Reaper, or hit six for the Immortal Servitude. This does, however, have a considerable downside. It comes into play tapped. This deck is an aggressive deck, and so the Crypt may slow it down. I find that it must be played turn one or two, or after turn four. Turn three is for the Necromancer, Reanimator, or Reaper, and four is for Servitude. Turn five is the best time to play it.
Sideboard
Blood Scrivener: This deck suffers severely from a lack of cards. This is an efficient card to help with that.
Cemetery Reaper: More power to our tokens is never bad.
Chainer's Edict: More removal. This is very useful as it can hit shroud and hexproof, as well as everything Tragic Slip can hit. It also has flashback. The downside is that you don't get to choose what it hits.
Dark Prophecy: Very similar to Blood Scrivener in that it nets wonderful card advantage. It beats Blood Scrivener in speed of drawing by a lot, but loses by not having a body and having a higher cmc. The scariest part, however, is that that we loose life with the drawing, which triggers each time one of our creatures dies. That happens a lot. This can be counteracted by Deathgreeter, though, which helps minimize the risk.
Deathgreeter: More life gain is never bad.
STRATEGY!!
This deck is, in essence, an aggro deck. It is incredibly durable compared to most aggro decks, but also is slower. Early turns should be spent building up board presence with the apostles. On turn three and more, move apostle to second priority, and instead focus on the Necromancer, Reanimator, and Reaper. These are how we beat other decks. The advantage we gain is unreal. Save removal. Only use it if there is no other option. We don't have much, so save it. Now is time to close the game. After the opponent manages to kill the bulk of our apostles, use an Immortal Servitude. Do not do this unless we are sure the foe can't turn it against us. The best time to use it is directly after a wrath. Worst: directly before.
Sideboarding is relatively simple. If we need life, grab Deathgreeter. Cards: Blood Scrivener for some, Dark Prophecy for lots. More damage/creatures? Cemetery Reaper. Lastly, Chainer's Edict for more removal. Amounts of each, however, is more tricky, and purely depends on the matchup. Adjust according to needs.
MODERNIZE IT!!
To make this deck modern legal, a few minor adjustments must be made. Firstly and most importantly, Rotlung Reanimator must go. Seeing as this deck runs off it, that sucks. A lot. I suggest Dark Prophecy and/or Blood Scrivener in its place, which will help us get to our Xathrid Necromancer much quicker. This is the biggest barrier to cross. Next is the sideboard. This one is much, much easier. Chainer's Verdict becomes Geth's Verdict, and the removed Dark Prophecy/Blood Scriveners become more removal, most likely Hero's Downfall.
CONCLUSION!!
I apologize for my lunacy, and for the stupidly long description. If you think this deck could possibly be viable, or at the very least interesting, please let me know. In addition, I am far from perfect, so I am sure I missed many good cards that should have been added into the deck. Any advice or criticism will be greatly appreciated and taken into consideration. Yours truly, SobbingAcorn.
