Archfiend of Despair

Creature — Demon

Flying

Your opponents can't gain life.

At the beginning of each end step, each opponent loses life equal to the life that player lost this turn. (Damage causes loss of life.)

Combos

• Archfiend of Despair + Tree of Perdition

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Veethevvitch on The apocalypse (Sheoldred)

1 month ago

ShadowMasterNL Archfiend of despair is on the list of potential creatures I just forgot the include it here as well! Was also recommended by Xtough on my evil dead deck!

For virtus the veiled I think I agree with your statement, I should look for something more synergic. What do we think about maybe cutting Grim Haruspex to include Archfiend of Despair ?

fluffyeel on Death and Taxes

1 month ago

Apart from a spate of tutors of varying price points (Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Entomb, etc.), here are some thoughts of varying degrees of evilness/making sure your opponents "love" you forever:

• Kokusho, the Evening Star is, for me, a must-include in any black-containing EDH deck, especially with how its life-drain effect scales with the number of players. You could also add an Archfiend of Despair and/or Wound Reflection to multiply suffering, Archangel of Thune to make your board bigger with every passing turn (or life-gain occurrence), and/or Boon Reflection for more life-gain fun!
• Some additional reanimation in addition to what you already have could be handy. For this, I would suggest Karmic Guide; Junji, the Midnight Sky; Reanimate; and/or Necromancy.
• If you have access to it, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician would be super-handy: on-demand sacrifice, not to mention card draw and weakening your opponents' boards.
• Some more land fetch/land thinning tools, like Expedition Map; Urza's Cave; Prismatic Vista; and Marsh Flats, might help. Similarly, Field of Ruin and Demolition Field serve double-duty of land fetch and land destruction for problematic lands. Alternately, some more multi-lands like Reflecting Pool, Mana Confluence, and other pain lands could help you in early game stages.

Xtough on Evil dead ☠️ (Ode to Sheoldred)

1 month ago

I think it may be helpful to decide which strategy you want to follow. With your current commander the recursion and Reanimation effects do not have a synergy. If you want to be more competitive maybe decide which sheoldred will helm your deck. The acopalypse is for draw/life drain. The whispering for Reanimation. If you stick with you current commander you could cut cards without synergy with her. However, a subtheme is nice if not competitive and I prefer decks like that :)

Some other cards that may be of interest could be Necropotence, Archfiend of Despair, Wound Reflection, Pox.

And I agree regarding the mana base.

fluffyeel on You draw you lose

2 months ago

Some small recommendations I can think of:

• You have a lot of drawing for all parties, but your opponents will also be discarding (quite likely, especially given the Memory Jar). I therefore recommend Megrim, which actually is the reason Memory Jar became the first emergency ban in MTG history. You could also run things like Animate Dead, Reanimate, and Necromancy to take advantage of loading up your opponents' graveyards. Of course, Rise of the Dark Realms is a nice showstopper, though it's quite pricey...
• Archfiend of Despair is a delightful combination of Wound Reflection (already recommended) as well as stopping lifegain. I love using it wherever I can. (It's also a demon, so it synergizes with one of your alternate win cons.)
• You could also consider going more of a snow-covered route, so replacing your basic swamps with the snow-covered kind and going with Extraplanar Lens to amplify your black mana. Crypt Ghast also is another mana accelerator.
• The Meathook Massacre and Massacre Wurm are also "board wipe with benefits" that I highly recommend. I also almost always play Kokusho, the Evening Star in every black deck I run. Archfiend of Despair could also be another fun option for removing things and punishing your opponents.
• Some of your artifacts and tutors could be better. Rather than Wayfarer's Bauble, I could suggest Expedition Map instead. Grim Tutor, Planar Bridge, and Beseech the Queen could also make for fun tutoring.
• I'm not sure if Gemstone Caverns and Mox Diamond are worth it here: sure, they're fast and get you more mana quickly (always a good thing), but the multicolored mana isn't so necessary. There are options I might prefer like Mox Amber, Mana Vault, Volrath's Stronghold...
• For a mono-black deck, Contamination might be a great way to lose all friends. I highly recommend it.

77hi77 on I BEG YOUR F@CKING PARDON??!!! - Razaketh

3 months ago

Profet93 I completely forgot about Ugin, the Ineffable! And he makes my expensive mana rocks that much cheaper, great shout, thank you!

Fair point about this not being close to cEDH, I more meant in vibes. That the strategy is to burst out of the gates, ramp, then tutor for the wincon (which comes out of nowhere like an infinite combo, even though it's not). I can't speak too much about it though because I never keep up with cEDH decks enough to know where the similarities are.

Ugin is going in, the only two targeted artifact removal spells I know of in mono black are Phyrexian Tribute and Gate to Phyrexia, I'll probably grab the cheaper of the two and toss it in there. The other thing I'm looking at is swapping the targeted creature removal, because a lot of it is sorcery speed, my Maybeboard has the instant speed versions I'm grabbing next time I go card shopping.

I would absolutely love to hear you recommendations! I don't love stax or infinite combos. At least, not easy infinite combos. I want Exquisite Blood in the deck for the life gain, but I won't get Sanguine Bond for example. If it takes some effort and thought to set up, I don't mind that. Similar for stax, I don't want to shut the game down for anyone, but I'm okay with making it a bit harder. For example, one of the decks I face the most in my pod is Gollum, Obsessed Stalker, which is completely shut down by both Archfiend of Despair and Plague Drone, both are in the deck, but they're creatures and easy to deal with. This was meant to be a mean deck but I'm a big ol' softie.

For budget, this is the deck I'm willing to spend on, I'm okay with a couple of $20 cards, or if you've got a lot of suggestions then let's say $5/card.

Again, thanks so much!

Pheardemons on Mishra's Relentless Horde

4 months ago

Profet93

Phyrexian Reclamation was there as a way to get the token generatros back like Krenko, Mob Boss. I do understand the potential of taking it out.

War Cadence has not been tested as it is the newest addition. I liked the idea of politicing. Plus, it was a win condition giving my creatures essentially unblockable. I'll think about it.

Vedalken Orrery is one of those cards I include in almost all of my decks. It is always a good choice. However, I do understand the fact that this deck usually wins on my turn in combat, so it may not be NEEDED here.

Because I have Wound Reflection and Archfiend of Despair I was debating on City on Fire. It rarely wins the turn it comes down and it tells the whole table what I'm about to do on my next turn. Granted, blocking creatures still triple damage.

Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin was another one that has been kind of subpar. If I can get it down turn two or three it is a powerhouse. Late game it's pretty bas as it has small attack and is required to attack.

MightyPox on Demon Till Your Dreams Come True

7 months ago

Hi Rocketman! How is it going?

Nice to see your Rakdos primer is still active and updated!
I appreciate the new section about Rakdos Game Theory!
Haven't played Magic for some time now but my buddy and I will be getting back at it soon. In preparation for that I went through the Rakdos-coloured demons on Gatherer and saw that there are new demons to consider for the deck.

Bloodletter of Aclazotz
We can always use effects like Archfiend of Despair/Fiery Emancipation, so this one's really good.
My deck does most of it's damage during my turn anyhow. Definitely adding it to the deck.

Infernal Sovereign
An effect in the vein of Recycle/Null Profusion on a 6/6 flying, trampling demon may help us in a pseudo combo turn.
I'm usually always playing a land and/or spell each turn or drawing/filtering cards in other ways so skipping the draw step is not a great set back. Not sure about this one but will be testing it.

Bringer of the Last Gift
Living Death is one of my favourite cards in this deck and here it is stacked on a 6/6 flying demon.
The only draw back is that it has to be cast for {6}{B}{B} which is a steep price as most of the expensive demons are reanimated. Only Hellcarver Demon may cheat it into play.
Nevertheless I will try this one out, maybe in place of Patriarch's Bidding.

Scourge of the Skyclaves
This one has been around for a while now and most of the time it will be {5}{B}{B}: everybody loses half of his or her life.
In an earlier iteration of the deck I ran Havoc Festival which was nice because it speeds up things and my opponents would lose the life before me and not simultaneously.
Still for this deck I'm always looking for demons that do "crazy things" and maybe one day I will test this guy.

Concerning The Balrog of Moria: I read that you had this one on and off your deck and I think I like it.
All of it's abilities are relevant to us. If I find space for him I will test him for sure!


I read through your change log/Rakdos Game Theory/user comments and I understand that you emphasize playing the commander and therefore divert slightly away from the demon-theme.
While I think that your success proves you right, I just can't bring myself to cut a lot of demons from this deck - I'm a flavour freak on this one. :D
I'm really light on Rakdos protection (Tibalt's Trickery, Lightning Greaves and Not of this World are the only ones right now). Maybe if I could find room for Bolt Bend and Deflecting Swat I could see myself casting Rakdos more often.
On the other hand: since I've been playing this deck 1vs1 most of the time, connecting with Rakdos is devastating for my opponent and almost always leads to victory.
I also had situations when I had the mana to cast Rakdos very early in the game but had also options to do crazy stuff that could potentially win me the game.
Albeit risky I mostly tried the crazy things because this is my only deck that can do this kind of thing - the Rakdos thing. :D

I'm looking forward on reading what you think about the demon suggestions I made in this post!

Mattio38 on Reanimator?! I Barely Vohar!

10 months ago

This looks like a very cool deck! I was recently trying to build something like this. If I read your description it plays really well? Don't you find yourself playing too few removal and ramp? And can you keep up with your recursion against the removal of all opponents??

Possible suggestions could be: Razaketh, the Foulblooded; he's big and he can tutor your next plan. Archfiend of Despair it's just a nasty beater. Maybe the The Scarab God for even more reanimation? And I figured if your commander gets stolen or let's say turned into an 3/3 Elk (Yes Oko, we've all been there) cards that do the same are for example Krovikan Sorcerer and Rona, Herald of Invasion  ^Flip Sorry, you've asked for cuts. I really can't help you with that yet...