I really like the idea of Shadowborn Apostle (Relentless Rats is standing in for it here until the site updates for M14), and right here in Standard we have a mostly-overlooked demon that needs a supply of cheap human creatures,
Ravenous Demon
. The high cost in mana and humans makes it unappetizing in normal circumstances, but the M14 common
Shadowborn Apostle
supplies a way to get him out earlier and a way to keep him fed.
A deck that has the sole plan of barfing up one-drops as quickly as possible needs a way to draw cards to replenish the hand, hence
Blood Scrivener
,
Sign in Blood
, and the one-of
Griselbrand
.
It's Black, and it doesn't have much of a defensive plan, so a suite of removal:
Doom Blade
and
Tragic Slip
.
Then a rather brilliant little addition to the deck:
Immortal Servitude
. Cast it for four to get all the Apostles in the graveyard back, both the ones sac'd to tutor out demons and the ones sac'd to feed the demons. Sac them again for more demons, use them as chump blockers, cheap attackers, sac them to the demons, whatever you like!
Super low mana curve (highest is two for Scrivener and Doom Blade, except for Immortal Servitude) so I feel like I can get away with a low mana count of 22. I would go lower, except I really need to be able to lay down a tonne of those one-drops.
No sideboard yet. Probably fairly typical stuff, bit more removal,
Duress
against control, maybe a second Griselbrand against midrange.
Some more card draw in the maybeboard, not sure if it's warranted. I like
Underworld Connections
best, as everything I cast will be low-cost so I can afford to tie up some of my extra lands.
It definitely has weaknesses. Board wipes screw it over, although damage-based board wipes like Mortars and Bonfire don't very well against the demons, and Terminus just shuffles stuff in to be re-tutored out. Post-sideboard I like my chances against aggro. Something like Jund Midrange is likely to massacre it, but that may be a matchup I just agree to lose;
Slaughter Games
is kind of the deck's worst-case scenario anyway.
It probably won't be competitive at all, but it does look like a really fun deck to play.
