Damnable Pact

Sorcery

Target player draws X cards and loses X life.

Discussion (50)

MaltOMeal on Absolute Theocracy

2 months ago

Sup lobsternips!

As a baseline, you'll need to add lands, which I'm sure you know. Since you're making Treasure and Gold tokens in this deck you'd probably be good with roughly 34-36 lands, leaning more to the most mana color you'll need, say like a 25/25/50 split if thats what you're going for.

Creatures

- We'll cover your cards to include by type, so lets start with creatures. I like the Angels, Demons, and Dragons subtheme, if you were considering it I'd try and include Kaalia of the Vast if you can get your hands on one, otherwise just slim down on the tribal stuff, reaching too far into each different theme could result in inconsistencies and clunky play. I've been there, it sucks a lot. (Unfortunately, you can't run Shalai, Voice of Plenty since she has a Selesnya color identity)

• Key Angels you may wanna keep: Avacyn, Angel of Hope , Angel of Destiny , Angel of Serenity , Sunblast Angel , Lyra Dawnbringer , Eradicator Valkyrie .

• While I do like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and Tariel, Reckoner of Souls they have a high mana cost as most good Angels do, while Tariel synergizes well with your strategy she does have that randomness factor and would advise a more reliable and consistent option. Gisela speeds up the game. As a player this is good and accelerates the game, but as an opponent my first priority would be to get rid of Gisela and that paints an even bigger target on your back.

• Restoration Angel is fantastic for your edict effects, at face value. You'd need to run flicker effects to really make it shine. Basandra, Battle Seraph seems really good, forcing people to attack is nice and it prevents players from casting anything in combat, however it means instant speed removal will be used before the combat step. This also stops you from casting spells in combat.

• As for Human synergy, I really like Teysa Karlov , Thalisse, Reverent Medium , Queen Marchesa , General's Enforcer and Fain, the Broker . All of them work very well with the token strategy, especially Teysa and Thalisse

• Things I wouldn't necessarily include are cards like Juri, Master of the Revue (as good as she is with Fling ), General Kudro of Drannith (incidental unless you go all in on the Human tribal strategy), Devout Chaplain (same reason for Kudro), or Dire Fleet Hoarder (basically a one time effect unless you jump through the Teysa hoop, yes it does give you a Treasure token, but at a cost of 2 mana and the creature dying).

• Things like Ruthless Knave , Pitiless Plunderer , and Impulsive Pilferer perform outstandingly well in terms of more bang for your buck in this case.

• As for Demons I really like the Archfiend of Depravity and Rakdos, the Showstopper , their mass sacrifice effects are wonderful, however Rakdos does effect your board heavily unless you play to his synergies, you wouldn't want Negan to die to his effect would you?

-When it comes to your Dragons, I think you hit the nail on the head, nothing I would really change or take out. Allows for Magda, Brazen Outlaw to have a decent outlet if you don't want an artifact.

-Finally, the other things you've got going. Dockside should just be an auto-include, albeit a heavy price tag, but if you can get one you should definitely include it.

• Dark Impostor , while mana intensive is still a decent mana sink that can function effectively as targeted removal. Definitely keep your edict creatures, they are super useful and trigger Negan, and thats what you want.

• Starnheim Aspirant is useful if you go super heavy into the Angel theme, but if you skimp on the Angel theme this could very often be a dead card.

• Storm-Kiln Artist , I like this a lot for this deck, can be a beater, and generates value.

• Vault Robber , seems bad, and bad to do. Synergizes with Magda and makes Treasure tokens, but thats really it... PLUS it requires you to have a creature in YOUR grave. I'd cut this, but if you have a reason to play it I'm not seeing immediately play it in your deck.

• Viscera Seer , good card, good sac outlet, not much else to say.

• Creatures I'd include based on what I've seen: Solemn Simulacrum , Burnished Hart and Mayhem Devil . Some good ramp and a decent damage dealer if you'd like to play a cheap one. Plus the Devil is great at just 3 mana.

Enchantments

First thing I wanna point out is the abundance of them, its good, but its quite a few. I like the variety of them though, from token generation to mana value, all of them are GOOD in a sense.

Angelic Renewal is basically a one time effect. While good, there are better recursion spells out there, but this one does fit the Angel theme so thats really cool. :D

Land Tax : Definitely play this if you want more inclusions in your deck and want to play less lands, but don't forget to have a focus on more basic lands for the landbase.

Luminarch Ascension is subject to removal by other players, and somewhat makes you a target, but with Divine Visitation and your non-Treasure generators make this super useful.

Aside from that, I think that's a decent spread of enchantments. Nothing to add really, love the inclusion of the Sagas and Revel in Riches .

• You could also put Martyr's Bond in for shenanigans, Hidden Stockpile for utility, or Flameshadow Conjuring for more token synergy.

• Flickerform is also a unique enchantment, but makes it doubly effective with edict creatures like Plaguecrafter .

• Shiny Impetus is good for token generation, but don't play a sacrifice creature to have that player just get rid of it, deceptively good and bad.

• The Eldest Reborn is also another good saga to include if you want another edict type effect, and when it does go off you can get what you want from players' graveyards.

Artifacts

I'm sure you'll add more later, but here are some I'd DEFINITELY include:

The three signets for your colors, Arcane Signet as well.

Goldvein Pick : hidden tRAESurES!!!

Inspiring Statuary for a low mana investment, you can effectively keep your Treasures around, or use your Gold tokens twice(tap it for colorless, then sac it for colored mana).

Panharmonicon to double up on edict effects.

Instants

Not much in this category outside of removal or token generation.

Wouldn't run Secure the Wastes strictly because it doesn't put Humans into play, play the sorcery option Martial Coup instead if you want a token creator with some OOMPH.

I'd recommend more removal, but with everything else considered I think you're pretty much good here. Really like the Crackling Doom and Vona's Hunger inclusions.

Sorceries

OOOOkay, lots to look at here.

• Approach of the Second Sun : Does provide you an effective way to win, very good card for a deck like this especially if the game goes long.
• Brass's Bounty . Love it, not much else to say.
• Contract Killing fits the theme and the flavor. Love it.
• Damnable Pact is good card draw for you, and useful against someone who flies too close to the sun.
• Debt to the Deathless / Entreat the Angels . While both good, is not something you want to draw into early game or open with. I would highly suggest playing less finisher cards like these, but if you wanna play em don't let me stop you.
• Killing Wave . Love it, super good.
• Necrotic Hex . Expensive, but great effect.
• Excavation Technique is actually a really good spell. Synergizes with Magecraft like WoTC intended and is deceptive for your opponents.
• Increasing Devotion / Finale of Glory . One of these is better than the other. I'll let you decide which is which.
• Heartless Pillage / Seize the Spoils . I really like both of these cards as spells and thematically. They work well for Negan and as spells for you to Pillage and Loot with as you please.
• Ruinous Ultimatum / Tragic Arrogance : Both are fantastic, especially as finisher spells. I'd make a point to include both so you have an option when you're ready to win(IE: Revel in Riches in play with a ton of creatures on board, its akin to vandalblasting with a lettuce on board).

Notable Lands

Mortuary Mire : Get that creature back in play!

High Market : Useful when Dictate of Erebos is in play.

Sanctum of Eternity / Command Beacon : You never know when you might need to use them. Negan can get expensive real fast.

That basically does it for my brief review, hope I was of some help!

MontaukMonster on [[Symbol:B]] is the New Black

2 months ago

I ran Multiple rounds with this one. I like it; it's interesting. Might I offer, though:

It seems like you're doing two things here that aren't working in synergy. You have the massive mana ramp with the Cabal lands + Sword, works amazing with the Nightmare and that pump guy. The devotion engine, not so much. Gifted Aetherborn kept doing nothing for me, and there were numerous times where I wished my kingdom for a simple Drain Life .

If I were to retool this deck based on having played it a few times, I'd find room for a 4x tutor and build around silver-bullet spells, and use that to smooth out the consistency. That's as simple as dropping some of the 4's down to 3: -1 merchant -1 blackblade -1 nightmare Makes room for 3x Diabolic Tutor

This increases access to each while adding versatility.

Other cards I'm looking at:

Damnable Pact holy crap why aren't you playing this card?? As for the 1-drop you mentioned, honestly I'd rather see some basic hand control in Duress or Inquisition of Kozilek .

Witch's Cottage

AzulTennin on Budget Treasure go wide

7 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

8 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

8 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

8 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

9 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

9 months ago

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