Demonic Pact

Enchantment

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

• Demonic Pact deals 4 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker and you gain 4 life.
• Target opponent discards two cards.
• Draw two cards.
• You lose the game.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	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
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

legendofa on Is WotC Being Inconsistent in …

2 months 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.

TheOfficialCreator on Warden of Lineages

1 year 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!

marco-piatti on Bad gifts commanders

1 year ago

Hello everyone, I want your opinion on EDH decks based on commanders that are focused on giving "bad gifts" to your opponents. I think the most rapresentative of this category are (and maybe the only ones? I don't know for sure, wouldn't like to be missing someone): Blim, Comedic Genius, Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor and, of course, Zedruu the Greathearted.

I own a Blim deck and i must say that building around him was really complex because it's pretty clear you can't go easy on gifts since are the only weapon of the deck basically but, at the same time, once you start spreading your fantastic gifts, your opponents will start targeting you like crazy.

Since you can't restart the board every other turn (probably you could, but i don't think i could afford loosing my commander so often and there aren't enough asymmetrical boardwipes) and the deck can't be 50% removal (then again, technically it could be but the point of the deck is trying to win according to a specific strategy and not to just survive) other kind of precautions have to be made.

The first one that came into my mind are pillowfort cards like Crawlspace and Marchesa's Decree. They look good on paper, but after you have given an opponent an end stage Demonic Pact or "simply" an Aggressive Mining they are more then willingly to be paying 1 life for each attacking creature (and yes, sometimes the numerical restriction of Crawlspace isn't a factor either when an opponent can swing with huge creatures).

Another "solution" is using token generators like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs since they give us the resource to block some creatures.

The last strategy to survive that came to my mind is filling the deck with "goad effects": this way our opponents' creatures can stay alive and are forced to attack the other players embracing the group slug theme i actually had in mind when building the deck.

Long story short, the deck has to be a delicate balance of all these strategies to be funcioning as it should and, at the same time, letting us survive till the endgame.

This is all in theory. In the actual games what's your experience when piloting/facing theese kind of decks? And what seem to be the most efficient tacticts?

aholder7 on Deadly Offering - $30 Budget Build

1 year ago

have you considered Demonic Pact in addition or as an alternative to Immortal Coil

BPWyndon on Braids, Arisen Nightmare

1 year ago

Cut Suggestions=

• Ichor Wellspring, great rate for drawing but you have plenty of draw spells + commander.
• Gravecrawler, Nether Traitor, Bloodghast, Endless Cockroaches since you are adding a level of recursion into the deck, these guys are obsolete, since we would rather have cards that have ETB or dies triggers. We can re-evaluate if you are having problems finding creatures to sac.
• Darkness, hopefully with your lifegain this card would be dead.
• Dauthi Voidwalker, while an awesome card it doesn't really fit the mold, and we need to make cuts.
• Swiftfoot Boots, I would find out how often your commander gets hated off the board before deciding if you need this.
• Demonic Pact, I love the fact that you can get around the negative of this card, but it is slow and we need to cut cards.
• Weatherlight Compleated, slow.

Add Suggestions=

• Black Market Connections, draw, ramp, and fodder all in one.
• Yahenni, Undying Partisan, one of the best sac outlet ever.
• Great Unclean One, both drain and fodder. I think he would be better than Sengir Autocrat
• Phyrexian Tower, sac outlet and ramp.

Edit= - Bolas's Citadel can also be considered card draw.

plakjekaas on Dominaria United Spoilers

1 year ago

They did get played, but only in combinations with colors that could get rid of them, like a Disperse on your own Demonic Pact or more recently, sacrificing your Treacherous Blessing to your own Doom Foretold.

Coward_Token on Unfinity update

1 year ago

Polygon article

Blogatog article on stickers

Notably:

"The majority, but not all, of the cards that can sticker or care about stickers are eternal playable (usable in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage)."

Also you randomly pick three out of ten "sticker sheets" before each game. So uh I guess all those Vintage tournaments will have people shufling sticker sheets just to not give anything away eh?

Magar seems pretty fun. Could have easily been izzet but hey rakdos spellslinger. Gogo double strike (or just extra combat spell cards).

Far Out: I wonder if the "may" lets you do no modes for Demonic Pact? (Also, I made this a while back and thought it might have been too much... Quantum Mechanism)

russo_bolado on Grixis Cat Pact

2 years ago

I'm trying to ease mana requirements without fetches (they're expensive for a reason), and my take on the 1 mana cantrip rule was reducing the number of Swamps (the shocks are mostly Black-centered) and adding 2x Mana Confluence instead of Crumbling Necropolis. I know it's not optimal, but I had these at hand, so they will do for now. Regarding cards, I removed the Lightning Bolt's due to mana issues - I couldn't cast it reliably on turn 1 along with Serum Visions and Duress, then I had to make the cut and push removal to other turns. So, to add to the control package, and keep the curve before T4 Demonic Pact, Terminate got back to the board and I added 2 more Radiant Flames.