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The Demon Plague: Witherbloom Lifegain

Standard BG (Golgari) Demons Lifegain Sacrifice Tokens Tokens

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I've been tinkering with a Standard deck that combines the new Strixhaven Witherbloom cards with a Vito Lifegain deck.

The main combo synergies all revolve around Daemogoth Titan/Woe-Eater, plus the new Pests (1/1 tokens that say "When this creature dies, you gain 1 life".

There are a lot of potential combos in this deck:

  • Cast Vito + either Daemogoth (preferably Titan). Then cast Tend the Pests to split one Daemogoth into 11 Pest tokens. Attack with all Pests, then use Crippling Fear to kill all your own Pests. Even with opponent blocking, this would be 22 damage in one turn.

  • Cast Vito + either Daemogoth. Cast Inscription of Abundance to give yourself 11 life, doing 11 damage to your opponent. Or activate the Kicker and make it 13 life, and destroying one of their creatures in the process!

  • Even if you don't have any Daemogoths out, you can do this: Cast Serrated Scorpion + Vito. Next turn, attack with Scorpion. Opponent will likely just take the 1 damage. Then cast Tend the Pests, sacrifice the Scorpion. That does 4 additional damage to opponent (2 damage + 2 lifegain damage). Then use Life Goes On to do 8 more damage to opponent. That's 13 damage (plus 10 lifegain for you) and you still end up with a Pest in lieu of that Scorpion. If you happen to have two copies of Life Goes On - or a Cram Session - you can do up to 21 damage, which can end the game right there.

Even without Vito, this deck performs well. You can have multiple Daemogoths out, and just cast Tend the Pests to one of the Daemogoths, giving you 7 or 11 Pest counters to use as sacrifice. Or sacrifice your Serrated Scorpion. The Daemogoths are a big threat enough to win games on their own. Crippling Fear acts as our main creature removal, destroying opponents' creatures and our own Pests while not affecting our Daemogoths.

Finally, Beledros Witherbloom fits perfectly as a game closer in this deck if you have Vito out too. Cast Beledros, and immediately use his special same turn, which says "Pay 10 life: Untap all lands you control." Now use that newly untapped mana to trigger Vito's special, which then gives all your creatures Lifelink. Attack with everything. With Lifelink, each Pest that dies will give you 2 life.

Additionally, I put Elder Gargaroth as it also has nice synergies with all the other cards in this deck.

Finally, I added Dina The Soul Steeper because this deck is lacking a good 2-drop. You can use her to sacrifice your Pests one at a time (for 1 mana each), acting as a makeshift Vito.

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90% Casual

Competitive

Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.

Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

18 - 2 Rares

10 - 4 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.63
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Pest 1/1 BG
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