This is a Combo Control deck looking to disrupt the opponent, resolve a Demonic Pact, and then Harmless Offering it to the opponent after using 3 of it's modes so that they die during their upkeep. If Dromoka's Command remains popular, Oath of Chandra could help serve to protect our pact. Extra pieces can be discarded to Tormenting Voice or Collective Brutality.
I think this deck can work pretty well, but it would probably need to be pretty heavily invested in discard. Discard trumps counter control, so saves you from counters. Discard trumps D-Command. Not really too much else you need. It will definitely be a deck that I will be exploring.
Another possibility, though much riskier is donating a Mindwrack Demon. If you want to get REALLY cute, add Visions of Brutality to it haha.
Weren't sure how it plays out, but a brew is a brew. Figure the bounces will allow you to tempo a bit, and the homunculus makes things easier for you to cast and can double as a back-up beater in addition to your wandering fumarole. The few counters are there for obvious reasons, plus you're going to need more discard out of the board (maybe the new Collective Brutality would be better in this deck now that it's been spoiled)
I feel like you could easily side into an interesting list (similar to that explained by pyro in the post above this) that would throw the opponent off if your game 1 doesn't really go as planned.
They would just D-Command after you exchanged control of it. Then they could target themselves, and sac it.
What do you do if your Harmless Offering gets countered?
If that's the case, then you're getting full value out of your pact and you're likely to be really far ahead.
As for counterspells, that's the reason I went with 4 Duress in the main. Not many decks are running enough counters to get past that. As far as other ways to get rid of pact in our deck, hopefully 7 draw spells and 2 tutors on top of the pact triggers should be able to find you an offering and enough discard to protect it. I'm really hoping for another wincon to be spoiled that can take over the game on it's own and is hard to deal with.
My build plays 11 spot removal, 4 languish, plus the demonic pact can kill something as well. Radiant Flames is only better than Kozilek's Return if you're playing a 3rd color. I'm erring on the side of consistency, although, Chandra could be pretty good here as a 5th/6th Languish and an alternate wincon.
Totally agree with Mardu is the route to for tricolor. Having insurance on Pact while maintaining a flexible option in Angelic Purge, Anguished Unmaking, and Nahiri as stated above is crucial.
Started to think Harmless Offering should serve as Plan B instead. Card is dead too many times
The curve is a bit heavy as spells under 3 CMC are limited to Galvanic Bombardment and Collective Brutality, holding threats at bay before sweepers
There's a lot of life points lost with Read the Bones and Anguished Unmaking which Collective Brutality, Demonic Pact, and Shambling Vent should mitigate.
No creature to blank out creature removals
Between Pact, Bones, and Nahiri there's enough draws to eventually bump into Harmless Offering
Tbh I thinking of going fully crazy with this deck and running Lupine Prototype and Tormented Thoughts to all but ensure that the opponent can't disrupt the demonic offering play.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
I agree with Silver_Spellthief on Lupine Prototype and a discard build for disruption. I also want to keep it two color with just BR.
As I see it, Harmless Offering is the combo kill, but the deck can win pretty safely on its own as well. It'd play somewhat similar to Rakdos Control I think, but probably a bit less removal, more discard, or maybe just a different build of it. Here is a rough draft list and analysis of my thoughts so far.
Kozilek's Return - Mini board wipe at instant speed for faster decks.
Kolaghan's Command - INSTANT SPEED DISCARD TO PROTECT COMBO!! Utility, but can also force discard in response to any last minute tricks by them.
Goblin Dark-Dwellers - Our only creature, gets back Offerings we've discarded, or whatever we need.
Galvanic Bombardment - *Sideboard* Spot removal for the matches you want to side out the wipes, can easily combo with Impulse for great damage.
Fiery Impulse - *Sideboard* Spot removal for the matches you want to side out the wipes, can easily combo with Galv Bomb for great damage.
Transgress the Mind - More specific discard, doesnt hit negates or D-command so its sideboard.
Tainted Remedy - Anti-lifegain tech, but mostly used to deter lifegain from swinging at you. Flex spot.
*For the flex spot (tainted remedy), also consider a 2 of creature, burn to the face, tutors, or finishing the playset of pact/offering.
I realize that I am probably uber heavy on removal right now, but I think that this meta is really creature heavy, and it warrants it. Control seems pretty rare, and discard already has a pretty good match up vs them. We could run less playsets and more 2-ofs and 3-of, but thats just my preference as I like the decks to be as consistent as possible with as many playsets as possible.
I wanted to put quite a few other cards in there like Lupine Prototype, Dark Petition, and Alms of the Vein, as well as up the Demonic Pact and Harmless Offerings to 4-of each, but just didnt have any room. I see this deck playing as sort of a control deck, especially in G1, focusing on removal and discard as needed, then using the pacts to win. Discard is great for countering D-Command as well as counters with control decks.
I think this deck would match up very well against both Aggro and Midrange, and would only get better after SB. Control is a bit harder, but if we side out some of the removal and add in Transgress the Mind, I think we have enough discard to really punish them. They'd waste all the counters on discard, and GDD would be able to close it out.
EDIT: Lands I just split swamps/mountains, I'm sure there are probably some better lands floating out there that we would like. We definitely want T1 Duress if at all possible though.
That's the first I've seen Collective Brutality and yes, it seems like a great flex card for the deck. I do see a complete lack of ways to kill creatures with more than 4 toughness in your build without spending multiple cards.
Yeah I thought about putting Murder in the side, and still considering it, Ruinous Path is probably better though. transgress is also a hedge against those big creatures. Finally, ideally, we're able to control the early game and durdle enough that we should win before something big can close it out.
Seems like pact would kill you too often without playing white cards. I was thinking something similar to zununefreet's, but with more planeswalkers and oath of chandra and oath of gideon. The oaths provide extra fodder for angelic purge, protect your pacts from dromoka's command, and improve your planeswalkers (nahiri, ob nixilis, chandra, sorin). I think 1 harmless offering is the way to go, with dark petition and digging (pact, read the bones, planeswalkers) to find it.
Imo if you're only running 1 offering and a low number of pacts, you aren't really playing for the combo kill. It's more your second or even third wincon, and you'd be stronger using a real card there.
My list really wants a playset of both pact/offering, and with a playset of both and pretty good card draw, I highly doubt I'd be dying to pact much. Creatures and other decks sure, but not self killing. Only counters and dcommand really disrupt us and I have 16 cards devoted to discard which will eat through that disruption.
The version I've played is Grixis. I originally tested a different list without looking for any outside input, just to brainstorm some weird ideas. This is what I've settled on now.
Mindwrack Demon - This guy fills up the graveyard, which allows Jace (or GDD) to cast Harmless Offering from the graveyard. Essentially reading "draw 4" if you have either Jace or GDD, just as Oath of Jace (whose scry is a significant bonus, but its primary goal is D-Command bait) acts sort of as a draw 3 and additional card selection. His body is the right size, it trades evenly with Gisela and Avacyn's front-side and does work against planeswalkers. It enables Dark Petition, it helps Take Inventory (see below), etc. And it is the second Harmless Offering target. Draw 2 or more, give the second to your opponent if they do not have Delirium and put a 5 turn clock on them.
Take Inventory: This card works very well as gas, especially considering how well this deck fills its graveyard. In many games I have drawn 6+ cards from Take Inventory, even if I only actually played one or two from my hand. Combine with Demonic Pact itself, Jace and his Oath, and Dark Petition and I can look very deep in my deck to find Harmless Offering.
Pact removal: I am running 7 maindeck ways to bounce or give Pact. This is slim compared to other lists, but I have had very few problems. By turn 8, the odds of not drawing a Disperse, Silumgar's Command, or Harmless Offering are very low. If I do not draw at all, I have 88% odds of having 1 or more, 57% of having 2 or more. If I have looked at even five extra cards (Oath of Jace + Demonic Pact), the odds go up to 95%. Most likely I've seen at least 5 extra cards, and this doesn't even count Dark Petition or graveyard stuff.
Removal: I have 2 Silumgar's Commands for planeswalkers plus Mindwrack Demon, and To the Slaughter from the sideboard. I run 2 Languish, 3 Radiant Flames, and Chandra to deal with small-fry (+2 Languish in SB), 2 Murder and 2 Ob Nixilis for bigger creatures. Other than Demonic Pact, I have my 7 (8 if you count Infinite Obliteration) discard options in the sideboard.
I feel that adding consistent draw and Mindwrack Demon is a fair way to construct the deck, as it makes it a more reliable control deck and less of an all-in combo deck, as a turn 8-9 combo is too slow on its own merit but a a control deck that can abuse the value of Demonic Pact and ALSO win turn 9 with it is fairly powerful. I would argue that in this list Take Inventory ends up seeing more cards than Tormenting Voices, and blue beats white as a third color because it gives better drawing and IMHO better ways of dealing with Pact, because replaying it is far better than killing it. Read the Bones sees a lot of cards but does cost a little life, and I think black removal > red removal for a control deck, and most of the madness cards are tuned too much towards aggro to play a heavy looting+madness strategy.
A lot of my cards were also chosen to hit certain mana spots. I didn't want BB on turn two, but I focused on black/blue rather than red, trying for a potential turn 3 R and turn 6 RR but focusing on turn 3 BB and turn two U. This is why Kolaghan's Command and GDD are in the sideboard, and the main reason I tested Take Inventory/Jace as my two drop card draw of choice. I feel a Dimir + Red build has better removal and draw than Rakdos + Blue/White, even if the combo is Rakdos.
GDD was considered earlier, but I like having no targets for opponents removals when I played much GB Seasons Past after the PT. Lots of decks (BW Control for example) packs a lot of creature removal maindeck, while having only Anguished Unmaking to deal with enchantments, which push the damage race in our favor.
Between Chandra +1 and Demonic Pact drain 4 we're already halfway there, and when the opponents is under 10 life going for the kill is much better than digging for the combo kill (which will take more turns). Get rid of any blockers for the Chandra tokens and just drop another Pact (Dark Petition tutor) is more likely to get us to win while hving either Purge or Unmaking to avoid Pact game loss.
Harmless Offering is a very solid Plan B, dedicating a deck to assemble the combo gets me worried we'll end up beaten up by aggro decks.
On a side note, Track Inventory is great, but Anticipate will work better hand in hand with instant removals though
Hi all, first time poster, long time lurker. I played the Esper Starfield Pact deck in SOI standard and am looking forward to brewing with Harmless Offering! I feel like Mardu is the way to go, having Angelic Purge as a way to dispose of the Pact if you can't find Offering is great. I'm trying a Planeswalker control plan with the combo as an alternative win condition. List below;
If you're running Mardu for Nahiri and Anguished Unmaking, I would definitely cut the Angelic Purge. You all are too scared of losing to Pact. Remember, not only are you at the very least drawing 2 cards from Pact, you're also making them discard two increasing your chances of landing a wincon.
I still dont really like Mardu as the 3 color, but if yall insist on doing it that way I would recommend dropping Angelic Purge for Discard effects. T1 Duress is WAY better in almost every case, it'll give you information about what youre playing against, and it'll give you a chance to snag a D-Command or a counter spell. Angelic Purge however is a dead card most of the time because of the additional cost.
Pure RB pales in comparison to 3c for sure. It doesn't matter whether you play Jund, Grixis, or Mardu; the extra color adds crucial ways to off your own Pact, giving you redundancy beyond merely Donating it to your opponent. Good ways to do this by color include...
White: Angelic Purge, Anguished Unmaking, Bound by Moonsilver, Nahiri
Blue: Disperse, Silumgar's Command
Green: Naturalize (or some variant of it)
Mardu seems like the front runner to me, based mostly on how good Nahiri seems like it would be in this style of shell (exiles your Pact, loots away lands/poor answers/extra Pacts/needless Donates, alt win con/removal). Can't provide a list though, would have to actually brew one up first.
In addition, there's no reason to ever run 4 Harmless Offering; the card only works alongside Pact (there's no other card we want to Donate ever), and is only good when you've depleted the Pact of three uses anyways. 2 copies seems like plenty.
Have you ever played a similar combo deck? I don't think I ever saw a Splinter Twin List with only 2 copies of twin. When you are going for a combo kill, you maximize your odds of getting both combo pieces. That means playing as many pieces as possible. 2 is not enough. Also, extra copies can be discarded to Tormenting Voice or Collective Brutality.
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Collective Brutality
1 Grasp of Darkness
2 Ruinous Path
4 Tormenting Voice
3 Read the Bones
4 Harmless Offering
4 Demonic Pact
4 Languish
2 Dark Petition
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Cinder Barrens
5 Mountain
7 Swamp
Modern: UW Spirits
What do you do if your Harmless Offering gets countered?
Another possibility, though much riskier is donating a Mindwrack Demon. If you want to get REALLY cute, add Visions of Brutality to it haha.
Instead of Oath of Chandra, I'd suggest running triskaidekaphobia possibly, and especially Tainted Remedy. There is going to be a LOT of lifegain running around I think.
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Sunken Hollow
2 Wandering Fumarole
2 Evolving Wilds
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Fiery Impulse
2 Compelling Deterrence
4 Disperse
2 Transgress the Mind
2 Radiant Flames
4 Demonic Pact
4 Dark Petition
2 Rise from the Tides
4 Harmless Offering
Weren't sure how it plays out, but a brew is a brew. Figure the bounces will allow you to tempo a bit, and the homunculus makes things easier for you to cast and can double as a back-up beater in addition to your wandering fumarole. The few counters are there for obvious reasons, plus you're going to need more discard out of the board (maybe the new Collective Brutality would be better in this deck now that it's been spoiled)
I feel like you could easily side into an interesting list (similar to that explained by pyro in the post above this) that would throw the opponent off if your game 1 doesn't really go as planned.
FULL TIME FAERIES
Selvala
If that's the case, then you're getting full value out of your pact and you're likely to be really far ahead.
As for counterspells, that's the reason I went with 4 Duress in the main. Not many decks are running enough counters to get past that. As far as other ways to get rid of pact in our deck, hopefully 7 draw spells and 2 tutors on top of the pact triggers should be able to find you an offering and enough discard to protect it. I'm really hoping for another wincon to be spoiled that can take over the game on it's own and is hard to deal with.
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UW Spirits
Started to think Harmless Offering should serve as Plan B instead. Card is dead too many times
This is my take, high probability of jank though
4 Demonic Pact
2 Dark Petition
1 Harmless Offering
2 Read The Bones
3 Anguished Unmaking
2 Angelic Purge
4 Languish
2 Radiant Flames
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Ruinous Path
4 Collective Brutality
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Lands (26)
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Battlefield Forge
4 Shambling Vents
1 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Mountain
Let me know what you guys think
-Chandra Nalaar
Lupine Prototypeand a discard build for disruption. I also want to keep it two color with just BR.As I see it, Harmless Offering is the combo kill, but the deck can win pretty safely on its own as well. It'd play somewhat similar to Rakdos Control I think, but probably a bit less removal, more discard, or maybe just a different build of it. Here is a rough draft list and analysis of my thoughts so far.
4x Smoldering Marsh
4x Foreboding Ruins
8x Swamp
8x Mountain
// 18 Sorceries \\
4x Duress
4x Collective Brutality
4x Tormenting Voice
3x Harmless Offering
3x Languish
3x Demonic Pact
// 11 Instants \\
4x Fiery Temper
3x Kozilek's Return
4x Kolaghan's Command
// 4 Creatures \\
4x Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4x Galvanic Bombardment
4x Fiery Impulse
4x Transgress the Mind
2x Tainted Remedy
1x Languish
Card thoughts:
*For the flex spot (tainted remedy), also consider a 2 of creature, burn to the face, tutors, or finishing the playset of pact/offering.
I realize that I am probably uber heavy on removal right now, but I think that this meta is really creature heavy, and it warrants it. Control seems pretty rare, and discard already has a pretty good match up vs them. We could run less playsets and more 2-ofs and 3-of, but thats just my preference as I like the decks to be as consistent as possible with as many playsets as possible.
I wanted to put quite a few other cards in there like Lupine Prototype, Dark Petition, and Alms of the Vein, as well as up the Demonic Pact and Harmless Offerings to 4-of each, but just didnt have any room. I see this deck playing as sort of a control deck, especially in G1, focusing on removal and discard as needed, then using the pacts to win. Discard is great for countering D-Command as well as counters with control decks.
I think this deck would match up very well against both Aggro and Midrange, and would only get better after SB. Control is a bit harder, but if we side out some of the removal and add in Transgress the Mind, I think we have enough discard to really punish them. They'd waste all the counters on discard, and GDD would be able to close it out.
EDIT: Lands I just split swamps/mountains, I'm sure there are probably some better lands floating out there that we would like. We definitely want T1 Duress if at all possible though.
Modern: UW Spirits
My list really wants a playset of both pact/offering, and with a playset of both and pretty good card draw, I highly doubt I'd be dying to pact much. Creatures and other decks sure, but not self killing. Only counters and dcommand really disrupt us and I have 16 cards devoted to discard which will eat through that disruption.
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Mindwrack Demon
Enchantments 7
4 Demonic Pact
3 Oath of Jace
Instant 7
3 Disperse
2 Murder
2 Silumgar's Command
Planeswalker 3
2 Ob Nixilis
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
Sorceries 12
1 Dark Petition
2 Harmless Offering
2 Languish
3 Radiant Flames
4 Take Inventory
3 Choked Estuary
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Foreboding Ruins
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Shivan Reef
2 Smoldering Marsh
3 Sunken Hollow
5 Swamp
2 Wandering Fumarole
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 To the Slaughter
3 Duress
1 Infinite Obliteration
2 Languish
2 Transgress the Mind
The differences in my build:
Mindwrack Demon - This guy fills up the graveyard, which allows Jace (or GDD) to cast Harmless Offering from the graveyard. Essentially reading "draw 4" if you have either Jace or GDD, just as Oath of Jace (whose scry is a significant bonus, but its primary goal is D-Command bait) acts sort of as a draw 3 and additional card selection. His body is the right size, it trades evenly with Gisela and Avacyn's front-side and does work against planeswalkers. It enables Dark Petition, it helps Take Inventory (see below), etc. And it is the second Harmless Offering target. Draw 2 or more, give the second to your opponent if they do not have Delirium and put a 5 turn clock on them.
Take Inventory: This card works very well as gas, especially considering how well this deck fills its graveyard. In many games I have drawn 6+ cards from Take Inventory, even if I only actually played one or two from my hand. Combine with Demonic Pact itself, Jace and his Oath, and Dark Petition and I can look very deep in my deck to find Harmless Offering.
Pact removal: I am running 7 maindeck ways to bounce or give Pact. This is slim compared to other lists, but I have had very few problems. By turn 8, the odds of not drawing a Disperse, Silumgar's Command, or Harmless Offering are very low. If I do not draw at all, I have 88% odds of having 1 or more, 57% of having 2 or more. If I have looked at even five extra cards (Oath of Jace + Demonic Pact), the odds go up to 95%. Most likely I've seen at least 5 extra cards, and this doesn't even count Dark Petition or graveyard stuff.
Removal: I have 2 Silumgar's Commands for planeswalkers plus Mindwrack Demon, and To the Slaughter from the sideboard. I run 2 Languish, 3 Radiant Flames, and Chandra to deal with small-fry (+2 Languish in SB), 2 Murder and 2 Ob Nixilis for bigger creatures. Other than Demonic Pact, I have my 7 (8 if you count Infinite Obliteration) discard options in the sideboard.
I feel that adding consistent draw and Mindwrack Demon is a fair way to construct the deck, as it makes it a more reliable control deck and less of an all-in combo deck, as a turn 8-9 combo is too slow on its own merit but a a control deck that can abuse the value of Demonic Pact and ALSO win turn 9 with it is fairly powerful. I would argue that in this list Take Inventory ends up seeing more cards than Tormenting Voices, and blue beats white as a third color because it gives better drawing and IMHO better ways of dealing with Pact, because replaying it is far better than killing it. Read the Bones sees a lot of cards but does cost a little life, and I think black removal > red removal for a control deck, and most of the madness cards are tuned too much towards aggro to play a heavy looting+madness strategy.
A lot of my cards were also chosen to hit certain mana spots. I didn't want BB on turn two, but I focused on black/blue rather than red, trying for a potential turn 3 R and turn 6 RR but focusing on turn 3 BB and turn two U. This is why Kolaghan's Command and GDD are in the sideboard, and the main reason I tested Take Inventory/Jace as my two drop card draw of choice. I feel a Dimir + Red build has better removal and draw than Rakdos + Blue/White, even if the combo is Rakdos.
Between Chandra +1 and Demonic Pact drain 4 we're already halfway there, and when the opponents is under 10 life going for the kill is much better than digging for the combo kill (which will take more turns). Get rid of any blockers for the Chandra tokens and just drop another Pact (Dark Petition tutor) is more likely to get us to win while hving either Purge or Unmaking to avoid Pact game loss.
Harmless Offering is a very solid Plan B, dedicating a deck to assemble the combo gets me worried we'll end up beaten up by aggro decks.
On a side note, Track Inventory is great, but Anticipate will work better hand in hand with instant removals though
2 Dark Petition
4 Ultimate Price
4 Duress
3 Languish
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
4 Tormenting Voice
3 Harmless Offering
4 Demonic Pact
4 Tree of Perdition
4 Triskaidekaphobia
Land
4 Smoldering Marsh
5 Mountain
4 Foreboding Ruins
12 Swamp
1 Blighted Fen
Ob Nix might be better as Chandra on second thought.
Creatures (4)
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
Spells (26)
4 Demonic Pact
2 Harmless Offering
3 Angelic Purge
2 Anguished Unmaking
3 Ultimate Price
2 Ruinous Path
3 Fiery Impulse
2 Languish
4 Read the bones
1 Dark Petition
Planeswalkers (4)
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
Lands (26) Red 16, White 14, Black 17
4 Shambling Vents
1 Needle Spires
4 Smouldering Marsh
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Swamps
2 Plains
4 Mountains
2 Battlefield Forge
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Foreboding Ruins
Feedback welcome
I still dont really like Mardu as the 3 color, but if yall insist on doing it that way I would recommend dropping Angelic Purge for Discard effects. T1 Duress is WAY better in almost every case, it'll give you information about what youre playing against, and it'll give you a chance to snag a D-Command or a counter spell. Angelic Purge however is a dead card most of the time because of the additional cost.
White: Angelic Purge, Anguished Unmaking, Bound by Moonsilver, Nahiri
Blue: Disperse, Silumgar's Command
Green: Naturalize (or some variant of it)
Mardu seems like the front runner to me, based mostly on how good Nahiri seems like it would be in this style of shell (exiles your Pact, loots away lands/poor answers/extra Pacts/needless Donates, alt win con/removal). Can't provide a list though, would have to actually brew one up first.
In addition, there's no reason to ever run 4 Harmless Offering; the card only works alongside Pact (there's no other card we want to Donate ever), and is only good when you've depleted the Pact of three uses anyways. 2 copies seems like plenty.
Modern: UW Spirits