Intro
This week’s Unusual Tribes column will dive into the depths
of hell to analyse Demons. 108 Demons currently exist in Magic: The Gathering.
As Black’s Iconic creature type the overwhelming majority of these Demons are
printed in Black. There are, however, 2 Demons from Kamigawa block Oni
of Wild Places and Shimatsu
the Bloodcloaked, which are Mono-Red.
Demons are one of Magic: The Gathering’s most evocative Tribes.
Demonic entities are present in almost all major world religions as embodiment
of evil and representations of sin. Magic: the Gathering captures this flavour brilliantly.
They are a tribe that is terrifically fun to play, but one which may end up
hurting you more than they do your opponent…
Power At A Price
Demons have been with the game since it began. Alpha
introduced both Demonic
Horde and Lord
of the Pit. Lord
of the Pit is, in many ways, Magic’s archetypal Demon. He establishes their
primary theme, namely that Demons are incredibly powerful creatures, but that
this power comes at a price.
Although Lord
of the Pit does not so look so impressive by modern standards, in
comparison to Alpha’s other creatures, Lord
of the Pit really stands out. Upon release, Lord
of the Pit was statistically the second strongest creature in the game,
beaten out only by Force
of Nature. For 7 mana, Lord
of the Pit offers a 7/7 stat line with Flying and Trample.
In return for this strength, however, he requires his controllers to sacrifice
another creature at the beginning of each of their turns or else take 7 damage.
Other Demons would follow the example set by Lord
of the Pit. Many members of the tribe are undercosted and have fantastic
stats, but penalise you for playing them. Master
of the Feast is a 5/5 with Flying for only 3 mana, but allows each opponent
to draw a card during all of your upkeep phases. Yawgmoth
Demon is well-stated for his cost, but forces you to sacrifice an artifact
or take 2 damage each turn. Treacherous
Pit-Dweller provides incredible strength for its cost, as a 4/3 for only 2
mana, but proves the accuracy of its name by returning to play stronger and under the
control of an opponent 
Abbysal
Persecutor is, arguably, the most extreme example of a Demon providing power
at a price. A 6/6 with Flying and Trample for only 4 mana, Abbysal
Persecutor has greats stats for its cost. This strength is weighed against
the considerable downside of the Persecutor
literally preventing its controller from winning the game as long as it remains
in play. This makes Abbysal
Persecutor the polar
opposite of the card Platinum
Angel printed in Mirrodin. Platinum
Angel, as a 4/4 for
7 mana, is overcosted but prevents its controller from losing the game whilst
it remains in play. Even though these mirrored effects were printed in sets
released 7 years apart, the fact that one of them belongs to an Angel and the
other a Demon makes it clear that this parallel is intentional.
So just what flavour are Wizards of the Coast attempting to
evoke by presenting Demons as creatures with tempting stats, but huge
downsides? Well one of the most famous
stories regarding Demons is the old German folk tale of Doctor Faustus,
famously adapted into a play by John Marlowe in the late 16th
century. Doctor Faustus is the tale of a brilliant scholar who sells his
soul to the demon Mephistopheles (a literary character who also appears in the
infamously confusing Magic card Chains
of Mephistopheles) in return for being
granted incredible power. Faustus spends his time with Mephistopheles abusing
his newfound powers, gradually committing increasingly morally reprehensible
actions. Faustus comes to believe that the Demon is his friend, before
ultimately being proven wrong and dragged screaming down to hell to suffer
eternal damnation.
The story of Faustus informs the presentation of Demons in Magic:
the Gathering. Their incredible power for a, seemingly, low cost offers a
dark temptation. A player summoning a Demon is forced to pay a price. Whilst
there is a chance that they can use the demon effectively and come out on top, it’s
also possible that they could end up like Faustus, condemning themselves to
failure in an attempt to wield dark powers they cannot truly control.
A Demonic Education
Demonic
Tutor allows you to search through your deck for any card and place it into
your hand. Later cards with this effect are now also called ‘Tutors’ in reference
to this. By casting Demonic
Tutor, the player is being taught mystical and forbidden arts by a demon
whispering on their shoulder. The forbidden information which the Demon teaches
them is represented by the spell they draw from their deck.
Rune-Scarred
Demon and Razaketh,
the Foulblooded also both have tutoring effects, furthering the association
of Demons with this ability. Demons such
as Kothophed,
Soul Hoarder, Vilis
Broker of Blood and Doom
Whisperer who provide card draw, or knowledge of the top of your deck, at
the cost of draining away your life tell a similar story. They are tempting their
controller with dark knowledge at the cost of slowly stripping away their
humanity, which is represented by life loss. The flavour text of Doom
Whisperer makes this abundantly clear, ‘The sound of every twisted secret
tempts you to hear another’.
The case of the Disappearing Demons
Between 1995 and 2002 not a single Demon was printed. They
were replaced by Horrors as Black’s
iconic creature type during these years. Wizards
of the Coast made this decision as they were worried that, by featuring Demons
in their escapist fantasy game, they would be accused of promoting Satanism. Hysterical
accusations of this sort had been raised against Dungeons and Dragons in the 1980s
and Wizards of the Coast, fearing the worst, did not wish to become the recipients
of similar backlash.
Magic the Gathering was really beginning to grow as a game between
1995 and 2002, and it was feared that now that the game was becoming
increasingly mainstream, its larger platform would draw the attention and ire
of concerned parents wishing to protect their children from the supposedly
satanic influences of trading cards. As such the
decision was made to scratch the word ‘Demon’ off of the creature type line of Black’s
bombiest threats and replace it with the word ‘Horror’. This was an exceedingly
superficial change. You only need to look at the artwork of a card like Abyssal
Horror to see that everything about the card’s art still depicted a Demon,
it was just being called a ‘Horror’ instead to evade the attention of concerned parents. In 2002 Grinning
Demon was printed in Onslaught,
marking the return of Demons to the game. Horrors then attained an identity all
of their own, evolving divergently from their Demonic predecessors. Horrors are now associated with Nightmares (such as the horror tokens spawned by Ashiok) and Eldritch
spookiness (such as the Horrors associated with House Dimir of Ravnica).
Wizards of the Coast parodied the manner in which they had
removed Demons from the game in the 1998 joke set Unglued. The set
featured the card, Infernal
Spawn of Evil, whose artwork depicted an adorable squirrel and whose type-line
featured the word ‘Demon’ crossed out in red marker and replaced with the word
‘Beast’.
Rakdos: the Demon, the Cult, the Legend
By far the most famous Demon in Magic: the Gathering is the
Demon Lord Rakdos. Master of the eponymous cult of Rakdos, he is represented on
3 distinct cards, one from each of our visits to Ravnica.
Rakdos
the Defiler, printed in Dissension, is a 6 mana 7/6 with Flying and
Trample. Whenever Rakdos
the Defiler attacks you must sacrifice half of the non-Demon permanents you
control, rounded up. If the attack damages with your opponent, then they must
then sacrifice half of their non-Demon permanents. This version of Rakdos is
arguably his weakest incarnation. It may seem like this particular Rakdos would
make the perfect commander for a Demon tribal deck, but this is not the case. It’s
important to note that the card makes you sacrifice half of your ‘permanents’,
rather than half of your ‘creatures’. This means you take a huge slice out of
your land base, as well as any artifacts, enchantments or Planeswalkers you may
have in play each time you attack. This
card becomes even more impractical in Commander, as only the opponent you
attack with Rakdos is forced to make any sacrifices. This leaves the rest of the players
sat around the table totally untouched whilst you decimate the boards of only a single target and yourself.
Next is Rakdos,
Lord of Riots from Return to Ravnica. A 6/6 with Flying and Trample
for the price of a mere 2 red and 2 black mana, Rakdos,
Lord of Riots cannot be summoned unless
your opponent has lost life in a given turn. This is an easy condition
to meet, however, and once the Lord
of Riots is in play he makes each creature spell you want to cast cost 1
mana less for each life your opponents have lost in a turn. Rakdos,
Lord of Riots combos brilliantly with several Rakdos cards introduced in Ravnica
Allegiance, such as Spawn
of Mayhem, which deals damage to each player at the beginning of each of your
upkeep phases. Spawn
of Mayhem allows you to summon Rakdos,
Lord of Riots and activate the Spectacle effect of any Rakdos cards
from Allegiance before even needing to go to the combat step. Rakdos,
Lord of Riots is a significantly
more practical card than his earlier counterpart and is very easy to build a
deck around. 
Finally is Rakdos,
the Showstopper from Ravnica Alligence. A 6 mana 6/6 with Flying and
Trample. When Rakdos,
the Showstopper enters play each players must flip a coin for every
creature they control which is not a Demon, a Devil or an Imp. The card then destroys every
creature whose coin comes up Tails. This effect makes this iteration of Rakdos
the best tribal Commander of the three. He allows players to batch together
Demons, Devils and Imps into a single unified deck, allowing you to, ideally, kill a significant fractions of your opponents' creatures as he enters play whilst preserving
your own. Mirror
March, also released in Ravnica Alligence, combos nicely with Rakdos,
the Showstopper. Mirror
March allows you create a token copy of each creature you control when it
enters play, if you can call a coin flip correctly. This (ideally combined with Krark’s
Thumb to increase your chance of calling the flip) potentially allows you
to summon even more iterations of Rakdos,
the Showstopper, which in turn forces your opponents to flip another set of
coins to keep their creatures safe. This can seriously pressure your enemies, or
at least hugely annoy them by forcing them to spend five minutes flipping coins.
This can be built up into a ‘Coin-Flips matter’ deck by incorporating Chance
Encounter, a card which allows you to win the game
if enough coin flips
come up in your favour.
Rakdos is also featured on the artwork of several Instants
and Sorceries, most notably Rakdos’s
Return. Rakdos’s
Return allows its caster to pay a single Black and Red mana plus X in order
to make target Opponent discard X cards and take X damage. This card is notable
as it is the mirrored counterpart of Sphinx’s
Revelation, which has an inverse effect which allows its controller to draw
X cards and gain X life.
Arbitrary Grades
Flavour: A
As I hope I’ve made clear throughout this article, the
flavour of Demons in Magic: the Gathering is fantastic. They force their
controllers into making sacrifices in the name of pursuing quick and easy
power. This is a brilliant execution of the concept of striking a pact with a
Demon which is prominent in so many works of fiction. Players, can mimic the tale of Doctor Faustus
by indebting themselves to a fiend. The parallel to the tale of Doctor Faustus
can most clearly be seen in the flavour text attached to most modern
reprintings of Lord
of the Pit ‘My summoning begins your debt, Planeswalker.’. This Faustian portrayal has become the standard
even beyond Magic when Demons are depicted on trading cards. Hearthstone
employs the exact same technique with Demonic cards such as Pit Lord and Felguard which offer high
stats at a low price, for a painful cost. Magic: the Gathering can thus be
accredited with establishing the definitive depiction of Demons in card game
form.
Viability: C-
For all of their flavour, Demons
do not really possess many tribal synergies. Putting too many Demons into a
single deck, would quickly spiral out of control. You would be required to pay
price, after price in order to keep them all out on the field at once, making
keeping a large board impractical. Perhaps it’s thematically appropriate that
Demons are far too individually proud to ever cooperate with one another. With
that said, there are certainly enough Demons who do not individually penalise
you to put them all together into a deck, and many demons are hugely powerful cards.
Additionally Demons who make you sacrifice creatures to keep them in play, such
as Abhorrent
Overlord , can turn their downside into an upside when used in conjunction
with Sacrifice matters cards like Mayhem
Devil or Cruel
Celebrant. The closest to a tribal option available is provided by Rakdos,
the Showstopper
who offers an incentive to brew a
deck featuring a mixture of Demons, Imps and Devils .
Best and worst cards:
To the surprise of nobody, I am
nominating Griselbrand
as the best card of the tribe. An 8 mana 7/7 with Flying and Lifelink, Griselbrand’s
primary selling point is his ability which allows his controller to pay 7 life
to draw 7 cards. Though this life
payment may seem like a steep price, the fact that Griselbrand
possess Lifelink allows him to heal any damage which he deals to you,
effectively allowing you to draw 7 cards whilst bringing out a 7/7. Griselbrand is typically the win condition of re-animator decks in
Modern. These decks which attempt to quickly get Griselbrand into the graveyard, in order to later return him to play
using a cheap card like Goryo’s
Vengeance which circumvents his steep mana cost.
The worst demon, again by a huge margin, is Shimatsu
the Bloodcloaked. A 0/0 for 4 mana, Shimatsu
the Bloodcloaked allows you to sacrifice any number of permanents as it enters
play, in order provide it with that many +1/+1 counters. A sacrificed permanent
in return for a +1/+1 counter is usually not a great deal, and even if you buff
Shimatsu
the Bloodcloaked to a huge size it possesses no protection, or even any
form of evasion in order to make those huge stats matter. Like many other
Demons, Shimatsu
needs to be paid for in blood, however, unlike his counterparts, he does
not offer any crdible power in order to warrant your huge sacrifices.
When discussing the worst Demons in the game, Halo
Hunter deserves an honourable mention. A 6/3 for 3 Black and 2 colourless
mana with Intimidate (which is essentially the mechanic which later
evolved into Menace) Halo
Hunter is far from terrible. The card even possesses the ability to destroy
target Angel as it enter play which, though extremely conditional, is
exceedingly powerful if it ever goes off. So what makes Halo
Hunter notably bad? Well in the standard of Halo
Hunter’s time by far the most viable Angel was Baneslayer
Angel a card which, due to its protection effect, Halo
Hunter is completely unable to destroy rendering
the cards one obscure niche even less useful.
So even though Halo
Hunter probably isn’t strictly bad enough to warrant mention among the
worst Demons - it’s practically awe-inspiring when compared to the likes of Shimatsu
the Bloodcloaked - I feel that his comical failure to complete his only job makes him notable enough to discuss here.
