Good Vibrations

Modern Creature Cheat Demons Flying Jank Sacrifice Suicide Black UBR (Grixis)

Balaam__

Creature (32)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Demon of Death's Gate
• 1x Griselbrand
• 1x Prince of Thralls
• 28x Shadowborn Apostle

Land (20)

• 4x Cabal Coffers
• 16x Swamp

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Brainspoil

Artifact (4)

• 4x Thrumming Stone

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Maybeboard

Land (2)

• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Diabolic Intent

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Had an old ‘93 card game under a tarp in the back of my garage. The frame was still good, but I needed a new engine for it. Went to the jankyard and picked up a motor from a ‘13 Dodge Shadow(born Apostle). Took a bit of tinkering to get it up and Thrumming, and it frequently stalls, but when it runs it runs like a demon.

The Mana Base

I mapquested directions to our source of mana: Ride the elevator down from Firelink Shrine, cut through the Valley of the Drakes using the Master Key, then at the bottom of rickety ramshackle Blighttown you’ve reached your destination. Say hello to Quelag and remember to save a humanity for the Fair Lady!

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•We’ll draw most of our early game {B} from the basic Swamp, which sets us up nicely for...

•Cabal Coffers

This land is perfect for accelerating up to {5} to pay for our somewhat pricey artifact. Our coffers are rather deep, what with 16 potential swamps.

That Pointy Thing in Washington, D.C.

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•Thrumming Stone is how we’ll get those good vibrations started. Once cast, any spell we play has Ripple 4. That means in a carefully curated deck like ours it’s highly probable we can repeatedly play Shadowborn Apostle as many times as we wish.

Not only will we have a massive board presence, and not only will our devotion to {B} skyrocket, but all those creatures will serve a diabolical purpose detailed below.

(Thrumming Stone Manufactured by Hitachi. Requires 2 AA batteries, sold separately)

Circuitous Archaeology

Card slots are at a premium in this build, but I’ve allotted 4 to include a playset of Brainspoil. Since locating Thrumming Stone is priority 1, it doesn’t hurt to have an additional four ways to fish for it. Pay {1}{B}{B} to excavate our sought after artifact.

A Faustian Concordat

If we’re somehow still alive at this stage, it’s time to do a little renegotiating of the terms and conditions of our matchup.

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With a sextuplet of apostates in play, simply pay {B} and sacrifice them as a molk offering to call forth a wicked abomination of your choosing. I’ve chosen the following fiends, but feel free to pick a particular pariah of your own preference.

•Griselbrand offers fantastic utility and a brawny body. The card drawing ability is relatively useless in our build, but Lifelink can offset all the damage we tanked to make it this far. Flying has its merits too.

•Prince of Thralls escalates the game state for our opponent. Not only do we unleash a potent 7/7 but we can steal their permanents on a recurring basis :D

•Abhorrent Overlord can help reestablish board presence and offer additional fuel for sacrifice mandates. Depending on when we choose to play this unholy horror, there could be 10 or more Shadowborn Apostle’s in play—that’s a lot of tokens.

•Demon of Death's Gate is the ace up our sleeve. If we weren’t able to land a Thrumming Stone and thus can’t spam Apostle’s, at least we’ll have a way to put a bomb in play. It’ll cost 3 Apostle’s and a chunk of life, but it’s something.

TL;DR

•Cast Thrumming Stone as early as possible, locating it with Brainspoil if necessary and using a mana boost from Cabal Coffers to help field it.

•Cast a Shadowborn Apostle then follow up by repeatedly abusing the Ripple effect to populate the board.

•Sacrifice the required amount of apostates to summon a malefic monstrosity.

”And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils...”

Top Ranked	Achieved #3 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Modern 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 5 - 0 Rares 4 - 0 Uncommons 32 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.50
Tokens	Harpy 1/1 B
Folders	Modern, Modern Decks, standard/modern, relentless