This competitive deck is exploit centered for massive creature/battlefield control while making incredible use of Demonic Pact, an underplayed card in my opinion.
I love control, and in preparation for the rotation I made this deck that so far in test plays has delivered really well. Not only is there incredible synergy with every card you draw, but the combos are ruthless. Sidenote: the temples of deceit are Theros =( but I intended on keeping this deck budget, so they are able to be replaced with Polluted Delta at rotation if equivalent land does not come out with Battle for Zendikar. The planes walkers tend to push the price of the deck higher, but they can be substituted.
Also, this deck could be better taking advantage of some Theros block cards, however I'm preparing for the rotation and believe I could tweak this deck with BfZ cards and make it even more formidable.
Mirror Mockery
+
Sidisi's Faithful
is the first combo you'd ideally put on the field, allowing you to eternally send creatures each turn back to your opponents hand starting TURN TWO. This is insane for playing against agro decks as it keeps them down in the early game or forces a hearty burn spell to drop the faithful, assuming they have something to block with after you send back to hand.
Mirror Mockery
+
Qarsi Sadist
is one of two, turn three plays you could make. This may not seem like much, but you will almost always get at least 4 life gained and 4 damage dealt with this combo before it is taken care of by a kill spell or blocked, which is huge when we start talking about rolling Demonic Pact to the field. Again, big butts early, so it's not easily killed.
Fleshbag Marauder
+
Mirror Mockery
is the second turn two drop. I don't think I need to elaborate on a combo that forces a sac every swing. Fleshbag is beefy at 3/1 forcing sacs so again, you're making early threats.
Demonic Pact is our turn four move. It's hard to find a better turn four drop that puts you in as good a position as demonic pact. Depending on the gameplay condition, you could card draw, force discards, or deal damage and gain life, all of which you're pretty much assured to get. The risk is real when boarding demonic pact but we have plenty of removal spells that add to the flexibility of this deck.
Mirror Mockery
+
Profaner of the Dead
is just mass removal. It works great with
Sidisi's Faithful
thanks to the huge toughness, meaning you don't even usually have to match it with mirror to get a good turn four play if no Demonic Pact shows.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier is one of our win-cons, on drop tutoring for the right card for the moment, and in this deck there is usually the right card for any moment. Don't forget to combine it with
Disperse
or
Rite of Undoing
to redeploy Sidisi multiple times.
Shadows of the Past
is important as another viable turn two drop for allowing us to gain access to some of our deck as we sacrifice creatures. The other benefit is as we fill our yard we gain the ability to start to give damage and gain life. This is important for another win-con I'll explain later. We also get to Scry 1 twice if we're forcing an opponent to sac as well.
Palace Siege
a great five drop if you don't have a Sidisi. This sends sac'ing creatures back to our hands to keep dishing out punishment. OR* If you find yourself in control of the game state, choose dragons to keep dealing some under the table damage and gain some life.
Disperse
and
Rite of Undoing
are the spells we are going to use to control Demonic Pact. The great thing about both of these spells, is they aren't specific only to the Pact, but can also be used on our own creatures or a threat from the other side of the field. It's not as good as a kill spell, but we have a lot of forced sacrificing going on. Rite is huge because not only are we allowing ourselves to pick up Pact again, but we're sending a threat under opponents control forcing them to pay out mana again for it but also it gives us full use of the yard (which gets pretty full quick with sacrificing and the mirror mockerys) allowing us to potentially cast this for one island. This is amazing as you can trick out the counterspell with
Disperse
and then delve and cast for one
Rite of Undoing
.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is in here as a late game threat, and the idea is to tutor him with Sidisi if you find yourself in the position to do this. Ugin works great in this deck because this deck is all about inflicting under the table damage, while controlling the field which is what he is all about.
As I see it we have a few win-cons out there.Usually by turn four when Demonic Pact is being dropped (hopefully), we have done around 3-6 damage to the opponent depending on what we draw. Dropping Pact twice, which is pretty easy to do, allows us to do potentially 8 damage over the next few turns with it best case scenario. Note that most of our under the table damage also gives us life, so it's not unusual to find yourself in a 28 life vs. 12 life position early in the game. You can see how between
Palace Siege
,
Qarsi Sadist
, and
Shadows of the Past
you can very quickly make up what little life the opponent has left.
The second is the Sidisi tutor.Sidisi, Undead Vizier There are a lot of card in this deck that are the right cards for the situation, you just have to look for them :)
Last is Ugin, the Spirit DragonObviously a huge threat, he can bring a game to a quick end if not addressed properly.
I'm not ignoring the possibility that we draw the exact right cards to control an opponents play style and deal lethal damage with creatures swinging, because that is a very real possibility.
I think I've identified the big threat archetypes to this deck as the control mirror match and mill decks. I've put some cards in the sideboard to help with that, but suggestions are much welcomed.
As and added bonus, if you find yourself playing against an opponent who plays enchantments (any standard deck still running a lot of Theros or decks that drop Monastery Siege, etc) I've put
Shifting Loyalties
in the sideboard. This is excellent for a hidden combo on game two if you notice an enchant heavy deck as it allows you to give your opponent your Demonic Pact, forcing them to start choosing from it's options, and in all likely hood, ending the game. If they start running enchant hate in their sideboard, they're probably going to be targeting Mirror's Mockery early to remove the key mechanic that plays. Just a thought ;)
You could make a working <$30 budget copy of this deck by substituting the Theros land and the Planeswalkers for equivalent threat. None of those cards makes or breaks the deck :)
