Demonic Pact

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one that hasn't been chosen —

• This enchantment deals 4 damage to any target (creature, player, planeswalker or battle) and you gain 4 life.
• Target opponent discards two cards.
• Draw two cards.
• You lose the game.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

SaberTech on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

7 months ago

I have mixed feelings on how WotC is approaching giving enchantment removal to black. I enjoy playing black so when Feed the Swarm was printed I was pretty excited to have that sort of option for enchantment removal, and the life loss aspect of the card made sense to me because enchantment removal was something that black was bad at so it should have a pretty high cost to it either in terms of mana or life.

Black edict effects to get rid of enchantments like on Extract the Truth make sense to me too because they aren't always a reliable method of removing what you really want to removal, emphasizing black's lack of skill in dealing with enchantments.

I do agree that Withering Torment is a bit too efficient for what I personally think black should be able to do to remove enchantments though. The three mana to cast it would normally put it in the "meh" tier for removal, but it being an instant on top of also having the option to kill a creature instead starts to tiptoe across the line for me. Sure, you also lose 2 life to the spell, but I think that's still too light of a cost for black to get rid of an enchantment.

Maybe if Withering Torment was worded more like this I would consider it more in line with what I think that black should be able to do:

Choose one:

• Destroy target tapped creature. (the tapped restriction keeps it from being a straight power-creeped version of Murder)
• Destroy target enchantment an opponent controls. You lose life equal to its mana value.

I think that rewording gives the card enough of its own pros and cons in comparison to Feed the Swarm that it can stand as its own variation while staying within the same power range. I also think that it should be standard for black's targeted enchantment removal to cost you life equal to the enchantment's casting cost unless the removal spell costs at least five mana to cast like Shatter the Oath.

I'm not fully decided on if it's bad that black has ways to get rid of its own Demonic Pact type enchantments. Black is more than capable of being able to kill its own creatures that might have detrimental effects, so is it too out of character that it can destroy its own problematic enchantments too?

Xzerro on I hate my Deck, So I will play yours

8 months ago

Great call outs. Tergrid, God of FrightGC  ^Flip is amazing with Deadpool's ability wasn't considering this. Will see if I can work in Demonic Pact and Feign Death as well.

Venum on I hate my Deck, So I will play yours

8 months ago

Harmless Offering + Demonic Pact if you wanna gift your friends for letting you play their deck. you could also add an instant to save your deadpool and opportunity to switch the textbox again like Feign Death

thijmnesoy on A Deal with a Dragon

8 months ago

ahw I was expecting/hoping Demonic Pact

TheoryCrafter on Archetype Name and Card Recommendations

11 months ago

A card with a similar effect to Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor is Combat Calligrapher. Though you can balance the drawback a bit by adding Blood Seeker to your deck.

Other cards I think may work the way yer looking for are Bloodvial Purveyor and Jolene, the Plunder Queen.

There's also the "Vow of..." cycle. The ones relevant to your deck are:: Vow of Duty, Vow of Lightning, Vow of Malice, Vow of Torment, and Vow of Wildness. Another Aura that works like that is Spectral Grasp.

Also, if you really wanna have some fun, there's also Jinxed Choker, Jinxed Idol, Jinxed Ring and Sleeper Agent. And don't forget the Demonic Pact+Harmless Offering combo!

I hope this helps. Thank you for reading me out. Happy Hunting!

RiotRunner789 on Ertai the Corrupted

1 year ago

Since you can reliably sack enchantments, Demonic Lore, Demonic Pact, Midnight Oil, and Treacherous Blessing. Good card draw and even better without the drawback.

Mind Control and Volition Reins are expensive for what they do. Though, the latter does hit any permanent, Disenchant, Despark, or Generous Gift are probably better options if in need of removal.

legendofa on Is WotC Being Inconsistent in …

1 year ago

I personally see a distinction between downsides and restrictions. Both are ways to limit the utility of the card, but downsides give you an outsized effect for the cost, but it actively hinders or harms you, while a restriction limits when or how the effect can be used.

Like, Volcanic Spite doesn't have a downside because it can't hurt players. That's a restriction. Similarly, the "activate only one per turn" clause isn't a downside because it doesn't actively hurt you or prevent you from playing. It simply limits how it can be used.

A couple of downside examples would be Steel Golem, which prevents you from casting any more creature spells, or Demonic Pact, which gives you lots of resources, but will cause you to straight up lose eventually.

Basically, if you would want to Donate it to an opponent, it's a downside. If you want to keep it but use it more often, it's a restriction. If it simply costs too much (Ember Shot) it's inefficient.

DeinoStinkus on Warden of Lineages

2 years ago

There are a couple of cards that have similar effects, like Demonic Pact, but of course those have the options on the card itself. Really, it's not too much more difficult to track than a Dungeon, you just need a sheet of paper or something. The shuffle clause is meant to prevent blink shenanigans so that it's a bit easier to track and less easy to abuse.

And technically it does have the chimera subtype, since it's all creature types ;)

But thanks!