Damnable Pact

Sorcery

Target player draws X cards and loses X life.

Discussion (50)

AzulTennin on Budget Treasure go wide

5 months ago

Feed the Swarm is pretty cheap and versatile removal to consider. Fact or Fiction or Read the Bones or even Altar's Reap might also be nice as it seems card draw might be a bit weak Thoughtcast is even better I bet with the Treasure synergies. Murder or Doom Blade or Tragic Slip or Price of Fame or Defile or Cast Down or Drag to the Underworld might also be nice to deal with enemy threats or blockers. Force of Despair is another good cheap effect that can help push through for attacks. Costly Plunder turns a treasure into cards which is nice and on theme. Profane Command is also surprisingly cheap for the versatility. Damnable Pact is neat as you can target an opponent to deal lethal or yourself to draw. Cranial Plating is a pretty awesome equipment with treasure too. Armix, Filigree Thrasher although not a pirate, has a cool synergy with treasures. AEtherize is a neat wrath effect that is cheap. Memory Lapse and Unsubstantiate is a counterspell that feels less controlling since they keep the card. Tolarian Winds is a one sided Windfall which is interesting. Thassa's Intervention is another potential counterspell that doesn't feel so controlling. Distant Melody is also probably a great card given all the Pirates. Merchant's Dockhand interacts nicely with Treasures.

Boomcat12B on Lord Kitty Land Walker

5 months ago

Alright here are a few things I notice that will help tune up the deck to help speed it up, as well as improve consistency overall.

Cards to remove-

Evolving Wilds

Tearamorphic Expanse

Rocky Tar Pits

Tapped lands are the bane of any deck as far as speed goes. Switching these out for lands that enter untapped will speed things up as well as provide better consistency for color fixing. If you are going to include a tapped land make sure it provides insane value (Valakut for example, or Mosswort Bridge in big creature heavy decks) so the drawback of the ETB tapped is worth it in the long run.

Nesting Dragon- Not a bad card but Dragonmaster Outcast is cheaper and will provide you with more consistency in the mid to late game.

Scroll Rack- A good card, but you have no real way to abuse it, and it is really nothing more than a replacement effect since your top deck manipulation is based off of high CMC creatures. Damnable Pact would provide you with a better way to refill your hand, and you seem to havew enough lifegain scattered through out to offset the life loss.

The Mending of Dominaria- It is a high CMC card that is fairly easy to remove, keeping you from getting the third trigger off and negating the power of the card... I would suggest Abundance since you are running Sylvan Library. This will allow you to replace the downside of Sylvan Library (pay 4 life to draw extra cards) and help you sculpt your hand for what you need in the moment. (Basically those two cards together read- At the beginning of your up keep draw three cards, naming land or non land for each draw. It is an awesome replacement effect need to be running Abundance)

Ranger's Path- It costs 4, and the lands enter tapped. You have a decent enough ramp package going already and i don't feel like you need the redundancy here. I would suggest adding Blasphemous Act or Black Sun's Zenith to give you another board wipe since you are running slightly light on those. Both are good cards just depends on which style you might need... Black suns will get around indestructible, while Blasphemous will normally only cost you one mana. Or run both if you play against mainly casual (ie big creature) decks.

The only other big thing i notice is a lack of single target interaction for Artifacts and Enchantments. Cards like Vandalblast, By Force, Force of Vigor, Return to Nature, and even Caustic Caterpillar are great removal if you find yourself wanting to increase your interaction.

Overall I dig the deck for what you are going for. Let me know if you have any questions about my suggestions are anything overall. Hope this helps some

shadow63 on Certified Reality Free Ramp

6 months ago

I'd cut animist awakening, Blue Sun's Zenith, Dark Ritual, Repeal, Damnable Pact, deciple of deceit, Trophy Mage and Tribute Mage all those cards are low impact or high cmc. And you can do better

Optimator on Giant's Deck

6 months ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

---

Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

---

Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

---

You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

---

As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Peoni on Zaxara's Infinite Hydras

7 months ago

Yeah Tragic Slip probably isn't so good here, but I really like the art. :^)

Anyway, if you're attached to the idea of using the group hug mana elements, there are probably a few other take outs we can find. Truthfully Gargos, Vicious Watcher might be able to come out. Only reduces the cost of a handful of cards and his passive doesn't have a ton of synergy in this deck. Maga, Traitor to Mortals seems like a good card to sub out for a few reasons, the big two being it's very black intensive and it only kills one player. Black cards you have that also have the potential to kill a player Damnable Pact and Profane Command at least have some utility to them outside of slaying someone and they aren't quite as hard to cast. From what I can tell, the only time you're going to be using her is when you can go infinite, and even then you're only going to kill one person. You could also maybe take out another land since you have plenty of ramp.

Side note, I just realized that Stroke of Genius was in your maybeboard and it's $5. Maybe it was always like that, but I could've sworn when I first got my set it was only like $1.50 or something, maybe even less. Very unfortunate. :^(

JeremyX2 on Life Management 101

7 months ago

Try Death Grasp or Damnable Pact for a fast kill late.

Bjrn19 on rakdos the heck raiser

8 months ago

helooo my deer have some suggestions

Threats Archfiend of Depravity Spawn of Mayhem Taurean Mauler

Removal Chaos Warp Doom Blade Vandalblast Dreadbore Blasphemous Act Defile Victim of Night

Recursion Cadaver Imp Animate Dead

Draw Doom Whisperer Vilis, Broker of Blood Kothophed, Soul Hoarder Faithless Looting Greed Bloodgift Demon Sign in Blood Damnable Pact Ambition's Cost Ancient Craving

Ramp Wayfarer's Bauble Mind Stone Star Compass Thran Dynamo

Hasty Anger Fervor

Synergy Krark's Thumb

PaulMuadDib on Vito, Thorn of Dusk Rose

9 months ago

You are going to need more than 12 lands. Whenever I build a deck, I always start with 40 lands and then for every 3 pieces of ramp, which for a mono black deck would be a mana rock or swamp doubler or ritual spell like Dark Ritual, I remove a land.
Please retune the deck with 12 non-land mana sources and 36 swamps for starters and you can think of non-swamp lands you want to include later.
My suggestions for those sources are any 12 of the following, depending on your budget:
Sol Ring
Star Compass
Commander's Sphere
Crypt Ghast
Charcoal Diamond
Soldevi Adnate
Songs of the Damned
Worn Powerstone
Dark Ritual
Everflowing Chalice
Ashnod's Altar
Cathodion
Guardian Idol
Hedron Archive
Mind Stone
Magnifying Glass
Millikin
Prismatic Lens
Cabal Coffers <- could replace a swamp
Bubbling Muck
Pristine Talisman <- defiantly want that

After that you've got the commander, which takes up 1 card slot, so that leaves you with 51 cards to choose from.

I see the bare beginnings of either an aristocrats or a reanimator deck. In my opinion you should push more for aristocrats. It can draw you tons of cards and gain you quite a lot of life. There's no harm in keeping some reanimation spells in there though.

You want a good number of sacrifice outlets. I haven't heard of what a hard number should be so I'd shoot for at least 5. Here's a list of some that I remember off hand:
Witch's Cauldron
Vampiric Rites
Ashnod's Altar
Infernal Tribute <- has a funny synergy with Spine of Ish Sah
Gnawing Zombie
Altar of Dementia
Attrition
Blood Bairn
Bloodflow Connoisseur
Bloodsoaked Altar
Bloodthrone Vampire
Carnage Altar
Carrion Feeder
Corpse Blockade
Culling Dais
Dark Privilege
Diamond Valley
Disciple of Griselbrand
Gutless Ghoul
Lampad of Death's Vigil
Mind Slash
Spawning Pit
Phyrexian Plaguelord

For this strategy you'll need recurring creatures or token generators
Ghoulcaller Gisa
Reassembling Skeleton
Endless Cockroaches
Tenacious Dead
Nim Devourer
Bridge from Below
Open the Graves
Sanitarium Skeleton
Gravecrawler

value
Pitiless Plunderer
Bolas's Citadel

Lifegain
Blood Artist is a staple
Plunge into Darkness is something you might want for the pure lifegain of 3 per creature you sacrifice. Not sure that you want to use the "exile a bunch of your deck" too often.
Bontu's Monument
Corrupt
Drain Life
Shadows of the Past

reanimation
Living Death
No Rest for the Wicked
Sepulchral Primordial
Zombify
Rise from the Grave
Victimize
Apprentice Necromancer
Call of the Death-Dweller

spot removal/board wipes
Mutilate
Damnation
Defile
Hero's Downfall
Vona's Hunger

draw
Read the Bones
Sign in Blood
Damnable Pact
Smothering Abomination
Ransack the Lab
Minions' Murmurs
Harvester of Souls

and so forth. I'd look through some already built aristocrats decks to see exactly whether you want to take that strategy.

Oh yeah, for utility lands I'd choose any of the following within your price range:
Leechridden Swamp
Bojuka Bog
Reliquary Tower
Cabal Stronghold
Volrath's Stronghold
Phyrexian Tower
Myriad Landscape
Terrain Generator
Geier Reach Sanitarium