All our lives, we are taught whole heartedly to strive towards Divinity and Salvation. I personally have poured countless hours into these ideals. After much contemplation it becomes more clear that they are frivolous. To what benefit is Divinity whilst all of humankind commit sin? The very concept of Sin being punishable by death questions the bedrock foundation of Divinity itself.
Is not the reward of sin, death unto itself ? What is a human but an existence destined for finality? Even Avacyn, once beloved protector and defender of humankind, has disappeared and abandoned us filling our hearts with hopelessness and despair. Months and years have passed as I deliberated these thoughts. I began to reject logic as it is nothing but a tool for argument. Reject Divinity as useless, as we all are full of sin.
Having come to the conclusion that I am already damned by mine own actions in this world, I made the decision to revoke Baptism and relinquish Scripture. In doing so, a bridge formed and a door opened before me. I decided that what use was magic or medicine if not for raising the dead or immortality? Using my own hand I signed in blood and accepted the Promise of Power from my newly discovered lord. The Dark Tutelage he provides cannot be matched. All of us wish for immense knowledge and power but no one wants to pay the price of it. Today, that has changed and I ask that your join me, as we are all destined for Damnation anyway…
An exercise of theme- clerics and Demons.
This deck is built around the idea of clerics worshiping demons. Way back when Innistrad originally came out, one of my favorite cards was Skirsdag High Priest. This card evokes feeling and imagery of the idea of “dark church”, demonic worship, and summoning demons. This card exemplifies what this deck is meant to be.
Themes that are present and which I built around are:
Temptation, demonic worship, summoning demonic entities, promises of power, pacts, self sacrifice, and paying life for knowledge/power.
You can see these themes in the card art, card names, and in the mechanics of the cards. This deck is meant to have a specific feeling when you play it and most every card included is chosen with the aforementioned motifs in mind.
Gameplan: Jerren provides us with bodies to sacrifice to feed our demons. He’s also super thematic as he is so dedicated to his demonlord, he will sacrifice everything to summon Ormendahl. While this deck isn’t an aristocrats build, we are going to use his ability more subtlety which can help fuel certain outlets such as Priest of Forgotten Gods or Whisper, Blood Liturgist. If we do flip him, we get a nice creature to help gain some life back and fill our hand.
I’ve included a good amount of reanimation effects to cheat in our big demons and our wincons are either combat or Liliana's Contract. We have some large flying bodies and also Withengar or Ormendahl for big chunks of damage.
Here’s a brief rundown of our card choices:
Abhorrent Overlord - one of the strongest enablers in the deck as he provides bodies for many purposes. Maybe we want to create an army of Dreadfeast Demons using the tokens he provides, or help with sac fodder as we curve into razaketh. The tokens also grant use fuel for: Westvale Abbey
, Whisper, Blood Liturgist, Priest of Forgotten Gods, and Ormendahl (if we ever flip Jerren) for value. Don’t forget about his triggered ability to sac a creature; this is important as you can use this to trigger Morbid abilities or even to sac himself or another etb effect creature so we can reanimate them for more value.
Blood Celebrant - cheap life payment outlet and also is a human to trigger jerren if we sac him.
Blood Speaker- great tutor to find utility creatures in the deck and the self sacrifice pairs well with the couple of Morbid abilities that we play. A prime target for tutors.
Burning-Rune Demon - great tutor on a body as it can find a creature + reanimation source. Blood Speaker is a good target, Abhorrent Overlord + reanimation source, utility demons, 2 board wipes, etc.
Demon of Dark Schemes - great against tokens and other small creature decks, his trigger to produce energy occurs for ANY creature dying and the reanimation effect is very nice as it can hit ANY graveyard, not just our own.
Doom Whisperer - great stats and evasion for 5 mana but his ability to filter draws and dump reanimation targets is very useful. Life payment outlet as well.
Dreadfeast Demon - new demon with an interesting ability to make clones of himself, pairs well with our token production from jerren and Abhorrent Overlord.
Dream Devourer - very powerful effect , helps to reduce the cost of our spells. Always happy to see him.
Priest of Forgotten Gods - super thematic card for this deck, can help control the board with her effect but does require a good amount of tokens. Has synergy with jerren when we sac a human card as he will make another token to help fuel her.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded - not much to say here, incredibly powerful effect on a huge body. Nice synergy with jerren who make tokens.
Reaper from the Abyss - One of my favorites from original innistrad , great board control effect.
Reiver Demon - very high cost card but worth the price as it’s a boardwipe effect that leaves our board untouched. Remember that reanimating him doesn’t get you the boardwipe effect, he must be cast from hand.
Rune-Scarred Demon - powerful tutor effect on a big body. Good reanimation target due to the etb.
Skirsdag High Priest - one of my all time favorite cards, perhaps the reason why I wanted to build this deck around the idea. Pairs well with jerrens token production.
Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire - powerful effect on cheap creature. Makes a good rattlesnake blocker as well.
Vilis, Broker of Blood - super powerful abilities on a big body. Enables board control and draws us a ton of cards.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist - very thematic card that has a powerful reanimation ability at instant speed. Jerren’s token production help to fuel her. Works very well when you reanimate Abhorrent Overlord to make more tokens for her to sac and can start looping overlord ever turn for nice value.
Sorceries
Increasing Ambition - an overcosted tutor these days but super flavor win here. Just look at that art! Could easily be replaced with other thematic tutors like Dark Petition or even swapped out for another card as we have a good amount of tutors already in the deck given the nature of demons.
Kindred Dominance - excellent boardwipe that can leave our demons intact to wreck havoc. Does kill our non demons but that’s just the kind of sacrifice that they exist for.
Promise of Power - super thematic card that very much embodies this deck idea. Very high cost , but paying life for power and knowledge; just perfect. Also can give us a double digit sized p/t demon pretty easily.
Dark Tutelage - a bob enchantment that is oozing with flavor. Card advantage at a price , can help lower our life total.
Liliana's Contract - alternative wincon here but also a good source of card advantage. Super fun card.
Rite of Belzenlok - great token producer and then makes us a big flying demon. Works very well with Westvale Abbey.
Elbrus, the Binding Blade
- great thematic card, costs a lot, but rewards us with a giant creature in Withengar.
Westvale Abbey
- not to hard to flip this given our access to tokens and cheap creatures to sacrifice. Ormendahl is an amazing beater that is difficult to deal with.
