Hi everyone! I came up with a cool new deck that uses Abyssal Persecutor, Demonic Pact, and Harmless Offering to mess with powerful "You lose the game" and "You can't win the game" effects. The idea originally started as an attempt to make Abyssal Persecutor work in Modern. I wasn't having much success until I remembered the old Harmless Offering plus Demonic Pact combo from standard and noticed that it has a lot of synergy with Abyssal Persecutor.
The list evolved from plain Red/Black to Grixis colors for more ways to get rid of the negative effects on our side with Echoing Truth. Through playtesting, I came to the conclusion that the full playset of Echoing Truths were neither necessary nor very useful most of the time. However, the other blue value cards such as Serum Visions and Snapcaster Mage were very helpful and made the deck a more traditional Grixis list with the addition of combo pieces to steal games.
I think 3 of each of the big combo pieces is enough considering that they aren't as good in multiples and you have all of the card selection offered by the blue cards plus Dark Petition anyway.
Interactions to note:
Donating a Persecutor to the opponent can stall the game long enough against some decks to assemble another combo of Pact + Offering or kill them with creatures and burn. More than a few decks will have no way to deal with a donated Persecutor.
Donating a Persecutor to the opponent allows you to hit the fourth activation of Pact without losing the game.
You can bounce Demonic Pact with Cryptic Command to reset its options or bounce Abyssal Persecutor when the opponent is at 0 or lower life to win the game.
Obviously the main combo to instantly win is donating a Demonic Pact after its third activation so the opponent has no option but to lose on their upkeep.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I hope you enjoy forcing opponents to lose the game on their upkeep and/or preventing them from ever being able to win!
I hate to say it, but there are very few decks in modern that can't deal with a gifted persecuter.
Basically one of your combos is to use 2 cards to give them a 6/6 flying trampler...
Besides elves who can't easily get rid of this guy?
Not trying to be rude, but just an observation..
The deck has way more options than just randomly gifting a Persecutor, so I'm not sure why you chose to focus so narrowly on that. You also missed the point of them being unable to win the game. Furthermore, if you think a little bit harder you can beat them down to 0 life with the 6/6 flying trampler BEFORE donating it.
But to answer your question, most Affinity, Merfolk, Dredge, Lantern Control, Infect, and Humans lists can't deal with a donated Persecutor. I'm sure there are more, but hopefully you get the point.
Most decks mentioned here actually do have a way to deal with it or the clock is unfortunately too fast typically to allow it. Your removal is well suited against the faster decks I believe, but it's possible they can still get you beforehand.
I wasn't focusing on it TBH. I was much more pointing it out to you since you stated it's one of the combos. Your words... Not mine. Like I said was just an observation made from glancing at the deck list.
I much more like running it with only snappy and SB the big guys for when they board out removal.
In Mardu you have Nahiri (+Emrakul) as another win-con which also helps dig for the combo while offering a removal option for Pact or opposing permanents.
You also get Flickerwisp which works well to refresh the Pact and can run some more good flicker targets like Wall of Omens and Blade Splicer to draw cards and clog the board.
I just wanted to give you some feedback, if you dont want it, say so.
The humans lists you linked ALL play fiend hunter. The merfolk lists play counterspells and removal. yes, they have to hit 2 of their removals at once, still doable.
They play 1 or 2 of fiend hunters in the sideboard. If they want to bring in a fiend hunter against a deck with 7 creatures, 4 of which are snapcasters, then that's fine with me. That would make them even weaker to the Demonic Pact combo. The merfolks would need to draw both dismembers at the same time. If you're going to use the argument that they can counter (which they only have in the sideboard), you shouldn't ignore the fact that we have 4 inquisitions maindeck and 7 counters combined with 4 snapcasters as well as more dispels and thoughtseizes in the sideboard. Using the argument that something can be countered is kind of silly, especially when we run more counters than they do.
Hi everyone! I came up with a cool new deck that uses Abyssal Persecutor, Demonic Pact, and Harmless Offering to mess with powerful "You lose the game" and "You can't win the game" effects. The idea originally started as an attempt to make Abyssal Persecutor work in Modern. I wasn't having much success until I remembered the old Harmless Offering plus Demonic Pact combo from standard and noticed that it has a lot of synergy with Abyssal Persecutor.
The list evolved from plain Red/Black to Grixis colors for more ways to get rid of the negative effects on our side with Echoing Truth. Through playtesting, I came to the conclusion that the full playset of Echoing Truths were neither necessary nor very useful most of the time. However, the other blue value cards such as Serum Visions and Snapcaster Mage were very helpful and made the deck a more traditional Grixis list with the addition of combo pieces to steal games.
Here is the list I'm running now:
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Abyssal Persecutor
Instants and Sorceries (26):
4x Serum Visions
2x Fatal Push
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Mana Leak
2x Remand
2x Dreadbore
1x Terminate
1x Anger of the Gods
3x Harmless Offering
1x Kolaghan's Command
3x Cryptic Command
1x Dark Petition
1x Search for Azcanta
3x Demonic Pact
Lands (23):
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
1x Blood Crypt
2x Steam Vents
2x Watery Grave
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Darkslick Shores
1x Spirebluff Canal
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Swamp
2x Island
1x Mountain
3x Dispel
3x Ravenous Trap
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Spreading Seas
2x Thoughtseize
1x Terminate
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kolaghan's Command
I think 3 of each of the big combo pieces is enough considering that they aren't as good in multiples and you have all of the card selection offered by the blue cards plus Dark Petition anyway.
Interactions to note:
Donating a Persecutor to the opponent can stall the game long enough against some decks to assemble another combo of Pact + Offering or kill them with creatures and burn. More than a few decks will have no way to deal with a donated Persecutor.
Donating a Persecutor to the opponent allows you to hit the fourth activation of Pact without losing the game.
You can bounce Demonic Pact with Cryptic Command to reset its options or bounce Abyssal Persecutor when the opponent is at 0 or lower life to win the game.
Obviously the main combo to instantly win is donating a Demonic Pact after its third activation so the opponent has no option but to lose on their upkeep.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I hope you enjoy forcing opponents to lose the game on their upkeep and/or preventing them from ever being able to win!
Basically one of your combos is to use 2 cards to give them a 6/6 flying trampler...
Besides elves who can't easily get rid of this guy?
Not trying to be rude, but just an observation..
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/782334-demonic-kitty
Most decks mentioned here actually do have a way to deal with it or the clock is unfortunately too fast typically to allow it. Your removal is well suited against the faster decks I believe, but it's possible they can still get you beforehand.
I wasn't focusing on it TBH. I was much more pointing it out to you since you stated it's one of the combos. Your words... Not mine. Like I said was just an observation made from glancing at the deck list.
I much more like running it with only snappy and SB the big guys for when they board out removal.
You also get Flickerwisp which works well to refresh the Pact and can run some more good flicker targets like Wall of Omens and Blade Splicer to draw cards and clog the board.
Having access to Lingering Souls and white removal (PtE, A.Unmaking) and SB cards
(Wear // Tear, Stony Silence, Rule of Law/Kambal, Consul of Allocation) is also pretty good.
They play 1 or 2 of fiend hunters in the sideboard. If they want to bring in a fiend hunter against a deck with 7 creatures, 4 of which are snapcasters, then that's fine with me. That would make them even weaker to the Demonic Pact combo. The merfolks would need to draw both dismembers at the same time. If you're going to use the argument that they can counter (which they only have in the sideboard), you shouldn't ignore the fact that we have 4 inquisitions maindeck and 7 counters combined with 4 snapcasters as well as more dispels and thoughtseizes in the sideboard. Using the argument that something can be countered is kind of silly, especially when we run more counters than they do.