Marrow, Sinew, and Blood

Modern Aggro Casual Demons Mono-Black Suicide Black Theme/Gimmick

shelldell

Creature (27)

• 4x Blood Artist
• 4x Bloodghast
• 3x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 3x Brain Maggot
• 4x Demon of Death's Gate
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 4x Viscera Seer
• 4x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (22)

• 16x Swamp
• 2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 4x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Instant (4)

• 4x Fatal Push

Sorcery (7)

• 3x Collective Brutality
• 4x Inquisition of Kozilek

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Sideboard

Instant (3)

• 1x Dismember
• 2x Victim of Night

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Damnation

Artifact (4)

• 2x Pithing Needle
• 2x Tormod's Crypt

Creature (4)

• 3x Fulminator Mage
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip

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A recursive, suicide black aggro build that quickly and efficiently summons the Demon of Death's Gate

Inspired by magicbb's Carnage at Death's Gate deck series, I'm trying to build the most competitive shell possible around the wonderfully flavorful Demon of Death's Gate.

Because Demon of Death's Gate is an inherently risky card, this deck will never be a tournament threat. But once we accept that, we're left with a fun deck-building challenge in trying to get this to at least FNM level. Let's get brewing!

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THE DEMON OF DEATH'S GATE

THE GOOD - Here he is, the Demon himself. Read that flavor text, it's great! Looking at this card, it's easy to imagine the best case scenario: quickly play three one-drop creatures and immediately sac'ing them for a T2 9/9 flying trample demon. Swing a couple times, yell some stuff about sinew and bone, and clean up the game. Awesome.

THE BAD - Ouch, that alt cost really is a hard bargain. 3 card disadvantage and 6 life lost is a much steeper price than 9 mana.

THE UGLY - And what if the Demon doesn't stick? As soon as you can say Mana Leak, Remand, Path to Exile, Terminate, or Go for the Throat you're out 4 cards and 6 life, an assured loss.

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What can we do to minimize the cost and risk associated with this card?

First, even though he's the focal point of the deck, we drop him from a full playset to 3 copies. We want him to show up in many games, but paying the cost more than once per game, even with the cost-reduction methods described below, is rarely ever feasible.

Now let's start reducing the cost. Instead of losing 3 cards, let's sac 3 recursive creatures that can quickly return.

RECURSIVE ATTACKERS

Bloodsoaked Champion / Bloodghast / Gravecrawler - These 2/1 attackers all have some form of recursion built into them directly.

Bloodghast's Landfall trigger is often the most convenient and "free" recursion method, but is limited to one resurrection per turn whereas the ability to pay to play Bloodsoaked Champion or Gravecrawler allows you to profitably loop their revival and subsequent sacrifice as many times as your mana supply allows.

As a nice bonus the high degree of redundancy between these three creatures gives the deck an appreciable boost to consistency.

Geralf's Messenger - Even though he comes in tapped the 2 direct damage and undying make up for it. If you have a Blood Artist and sac outlet you can potentially play the Messenger and immediately sac him to get 5 direct damage in, gain 1 life, and get the messenger buffed to 4/3 right away.

Additionally, keeping your messenger on the field helps you to play Gravecrawlers from your graveyard.

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Now we can add some additional cards that benefit from the sacrifice (or any other death).

SAC LOVERS

Blood Artist - A 2 point life swing with each death. -6 life for a Demon becomes, -3 for both players with a single Artist, or even -0 for you and -6 for your opponent with two Artists on the board.

Quest for the Gravelord - This one-drop regularly generates a 5/5 zombie within 1-2 turns, and helps your 2/1 attackers chip away at the opponent's life as blocking looks less favorable.

Tragic Slip - With all the sac going around it's very easy to trigger the morbid -13/-13 on this, taking down indestructible threats that are usually too large for dismember

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Finally, here are a few other cards that help support the deck...

SUPPORTING CARDS

Inquisition of Kozilek - We've done a good job of reducing the impact of the Demon's alt cost substantially, but the issue of making sure the Demon stays on the board remains. The best we can do in that regard is to run a playset of Inquisition, which covers all of the common answers listed above and doesn't cost us any life, which we'll need to save for payment. If the opponent is packing a lot of counters or removal we can sideboard in additional Duress.

Bad Moon Bumps all of our little attackers up from 2/1 to 3/2. Since monoblack aggro decks are relatively rare in modern, it should be easy to get an asymmetrical advantage out of this global buff. Stay tuned for further testing...

Sign in Blood - with the low curve of this deck Sign in Blood can keep our hand full, or function as a final -2 burn in rare cases. Ordinarily we'd run Dark Confidant in a mono-black aggro build, but here randomly pulling a Demon and losing 9 life would be disastrous.

Grim Haruspex - Sacs or board wipes now refill your hand!

Viscera Seer - An instant-speed, free sac outlet that provides helpful draw filtering and can be sac'd himself if needed.

Killing Wave - Depending upon the board state and the amount of mana pumped into this spell its results will fluctuate somewhere between a hefty burn and a board wipe. Synergizes very well with Blood Artist. Occasionally it can be cast with X=0 just as an outlet to sac as many creatures as you need to finish off the game.

Damnation - A true board wipe. Again, synergizes with Blood Artist.

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There you have it. Even if the Demon himself never shows up during your game, you're still left with a quick and capable aggro build that continues to operate smoothly.

I would love suggestions on any of the following:

-Mainboard or sideboard tweaks
-Even completely different shells that could work better -- got an idea? let's explore it
-Totally metal deck titles :P

Thank you, and happy brewing.

Top Ranked	Achieved #9 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 1 Mythic Rares 16 - 9 Rares 19 - 3 Uncommons 4 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.37
Tokens	Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	mis Mazos negros, black aggro, Fun decks, Cool Shit, Black, Fun Decks :D, sacrifice deck, black, Good Ideas, Inspired Decks