Unusual Tribes 14: Dogs

Intro

Core Set 2021 looks set to shake up the game. Another powerful Teferi is on the way to terrorise the meta again, powerful cards from the past like Ugin, the Sprit Dragon and Baneslayer Angel are being reprinted and the Phasing mechanic is set to return after a 23 year long absence. Amongst all of these big alterations one small, but important, change is also occurring. Every single Hound in the game is being errated (a fancy card game term meaning ‘changed retroactively’) into a Dog. This is a small alteration, but one which Magic the Gathering’s chief designer Mark Rosewater has been campaigning for, for years. The flavour text of the card B-I-N-G-O  references this debate in its flavour text, quoting the children’s song about a Dog named Bingo but swapping the word ‘Dog’ out for the word ‘Hound’.

This shows that the great Hound/Dog debate has haunted Magic the Gathering since, at least, as far back as 2004. Now this change is finally coming to pass, and to commemorate the ‘great doggening of 2020’ this edition of Unusual Tribes will look at Dogs. We will be analysing the viability of Dogs as a create type and discussing whether it is possible to build a deck of perfect puppers, or if they are just too floofy to fight fiercely.

A History of Hounds

There are currently 89 Dogs in the game, and they are spread across all 5 colours, although they appear most frequently in white, red and green. The game even features two artifact dogs: Immolating Souleater and Leashling, with the Souleater serving as a reminder that even the Multiverse’s most malevolent terror, the Phyrexians, have a soft spot for dogs. The first dog printed in the game was Snow Hound who was released in Ice Age in 1995. Snow Hound features flavour text which is somehow simultaneously heart-warming and morbid, stating ‘If you’re starving, eat your horses, your dead, or yourself—but never eat your dog’. 

Unfortunately, many of the dogs of the Multiverse are rather forgettable. Hollow Dogs is but one of the many Dog cards in the game with bark worse than their bite, as an overcosted piece of draft chaff. Wild Dogs is another weak card and one which proves that not all Dogs are loyal by changing sides during each of your upkeeps if another player has more life than you.  The non-viability of Dogs is made all the more apparent when they are compared to their ancient rivals, Cats.

Cats have been a viable tribe in Magic the Gathering for years. Savannah Lions, was one of the game’s premier aggro cards for many years. Amonkhet block featured Cat tribal as a prominent theme, as demonstrated by cards like Pride Sovereign and Regal Caracal. Finally, Feline Ferocity a preconstructed Commander deck based around Cats, was released in 2017. Dogs, however, have not been so lucky.  This even applies to their humanoid counterparts.  The catlike Leonin are a regular presence across many planes, from Mirrodin to Theros.  The doglike, Ainok, meanwhile, have so far appeared exclusively on Tarkir.

Until very recently, neither ‘Dog’ or ‘Hound’ tribal have ever been attempted as a theme and no real synergies have ever existed to encourage you to run multiple dogs together. Core Set 2021 and Jump Start are set to shake things up though, by printing a plethora new Dogs. 

Rin, Seri, the Pack leader and Others

Upon being revealed, the card Rin and Seri, Inseparable captured  the hearts of the Magic the Gathering community. The card is widely regarded as an adorable and evocative piece of design, as evidenced by the dozens of memes which affectionately parodied it that accompanied its reveal. The card depicts a heart-warming friendship between a dog named Rin and cat named Seri. Whenever you play a Dog, you create a 1/1 Cat token and whenever you play a Cat you create a 1/1 Dog token. The card also has an activated ability which deals damage to any target equal to the number of Dogs you have in play and the heals you equal to the number of Cats you control. Rin and Seri were clearly designed to be a commander which enables you to weld both Cat and Dog tribal themes together into a single deck. The card enables you to run the feline/canine strategy of your dreams. Time will tell just how powerful this will turn out to be, and whether cat/dog decks may even see some fringe play in standard. At the very least, the card is an interesting experiment.

Pack Leader is the next innovation brough about by Core Set 2021, it’s a lord for Dogs and a powerful one at that. Pack Leader grants all of your Dogs +1/+1 and invulnerability to combat damage whilst they are attacking for a mere two mana, this is a fantastic deal and any Dog deck should run as many copies of it as they can get their hands on. The card is more powerful than most lords, which typically cost more mana and don’t grant abilities as useful as imperviousness to combat damage. This may be balanced out slightly by the relative weakness of Dogs as a tribe prior to this point.

Core Set 2021 is not the only newly released product to contain new treats for Dog decks. Jump Start contains a collection of canine cards. Trusty Retriever is a 2/3 for 4 that can either gain a +1/+1 counter or return an artifact or enchantment from your graveyard to your hand as it enters play. You can also let the dogs out by casting Release the Dogs a 4 mana spell which creates 4 1/1 white dog tokens, although unless you have some way to buff these dogs their arrival may be slightly anticlimactic.

Finally Jump Start contains a thematically appropriate plains cards featuring some Dog-based artwork, which you can use to bling out your deck, possibly alongside a Cat-based forest if you’re running a Rin and Seri deck.

A Side Note on Cerberus

Before we get to the grades, I would just like to take a quick moment to discuss how Magic the Gathering has portrayed one of the most famous dogs of Greek Mythology. Cerberus, the pet of Hades and the guard dog of the Underworld has been represented on several Magic the Gathering cards.

There are also two widely different, but equally flavourful, portrayals of Cerberus, which I feel deserve attention here. Underworld Cerberus from the original Theros can’t be blocked except by three or more creatures, demonstrating the fact that it has three heads. Underworld Cerberus also prevents cards in graveyards from being targeted by spells or abilities, showing that whilst Cerberus is guarding the gates, access to the underworld is sealed off. But when Underworld Cerberus dies, every creature in each players’ graveyard returns to play in a chaotic burst, as the souls of the dead flood back into the mortal world. Kunoros, Hound of Athreos, released in Theros Beyond Death, has an arbitrary collection of Keywords, as many modern legendary creatures often do. In addition, Kunoros prevents creatures and spells from the graveyard from being cast. An effect which was incredibly relevant in the Limited environment of Theros Beyond Death, which was based around the Escape mechanic, causing spells and creatures from the Graveyard to thematically escape from the Underworld and return to play.  A feat that can no longer be accomplished whilst Kunoros is on the battlefield.

 

Arbitrary Grades

Flavour: B

So what comes to mind when we think of dogs? A few words that come to mind are loyalty, companionship, optimism and energy. How well does Magic the Gathering convey these ideas?

The loyalty of Dogs to their owners is demonstrated in an often tragic way. Many dogs, such as Selfless Saviour and Resolute Watchdog  can sacrifice themselves in order to grant another creature indestructible, thematically these doggos are leaping in and taking a lethal blow for their master.  Companionship is demonstrated very literally through Dogs which possess the Companion mechanic such as Chakram Retriever and Pako, Arcane Retriever. Both of these Dogs can also play fetch with their companions. This is represented by Chakram Retriever untapping Chakram Slinger each time you cast a spell and Pako placing fetch counters on cards from each player’s library which you can then cast through the effect of Haldan Avid Arcanist.

Finally the optimism and energy of dogs is reflected by giving some of them a handful of abilities like First Strike and Haste, showing how they will bound towards opponents, just as real dogs bound towards their owners when they return home.

All in all, I think the Dogs of Magic are authentically portrayed. Perhaps a few more of them could have keyword abilities like Haste and First Strike as only a small amount have these flavourful energetic abilities. Furthermore, maybe loyalty could be demonstrated in new, non-lethal, ways. For example, some Dogs could be printed which cannot change controller. This would mean that they no longer to sacrifice themselves in order to prove their loyalty, as I don’t know how many more dogs forced into martyrdom my poor heart can take.

Viability: D

Awarding a grade here is slightly difficult.  It can only really be speculative, as the support which Core Set 2021 and Jump Start will provide have yet to arrive. It seems as though Rin and Seri decks will work in Commander, and possibly even in Standard, but those decks aren’t really ‘Dog Tribal decks’ as you’ll need to make use of several cats as well.

So running an independent Dog deck currently seems difficult. Core Set 2021 does represent a massive increase in support for Dog-decks and it is possible that they will become increasingly viable as time goes on. For now, however, a D seems appropriate.

Best and worst cards:    

The best Dog is difficult to determine. There have only been a few powerful and impactful Dogs in Magic’s history. Wild Mongrel is a powerful enabler of the Madness mechanic, as it enable you to discard as many cards as you need to at any given moment. Isamaru, Hound of Konda is another powerful Dog who is notable for being the only 1 mana 2/2 creature in the game with no downside, aside from being Legendary. Though the card is, as yet, unreleased  (at least outside of arena) Pack Leader is probably a contender here. None of these cards are terribly game breaking, however, and there’s definitely room for more powerful Dogs in the future.

The worst Dog, however, is a clear choice.  Filthy Cur is a 2 mana 2/2, but any damage it takes is dealt to you.  Although its stats are far from awful, it is often a massive liability, especially when you are playing against a Red deck, as their removal suite is based on effect which deal damage. A Shock or a Lightning Bolt is twice as painful if it zaps both you and your pet.

I mentioned above that Wild Dogs changes sides during each of your upkeep phases. As a 2/1, for 1 mana it definitely doesn’t have the stats to justify this deeply negative ability, it didn’t when it was printed and it certainly doesn’t now. The fact that the card can simply be cycled away, however, prevents it from being as bad as Filthy Cur, as you can just pay a bit of mana and swap it for the top card in your deck if an opponent has significantly more life than you.

The History of Magic the Gathering Told Through a Card From Every Set - 2: Fallen Empires-Weatherlight

Here's the second in my video series exploring the history of Magic the Gathering  using a card from each set as a reference point.  Next week I aim to bring out another Unusual Tribes article before carrying on with this series further.

The History of Magic the Gathering Told Through a Card From Every Set - Part 1: Alpha-The Dark

This video marks the beginning of a long running project which I have wanted to start for a while now. I am going to attempt to analyse the history of Magic: the Gathering by using a card from every set as a reference point. This will allow me to analyse how the game has changed overtime, but also what aspects have remained consistent. I hope you enjoy this video, and the rest of the series which I'll be releasing along with my usual Unusual Tribes articles.

Unusual Tribes 13: Golems

Intro

This week’s Unusual Tribes column will analyse Golems, a creature type that has always been dear to my heart. 11 years ago now, I (as a child) cracked open a Magic 2010 booster pack and saw, what I believed at the time, to be the most powerful Magic: The Gathering card I had ever laid eyes upon. Darksteel Colossus . Shovelling together as many ramp spells as I could, I quickly headed off to Friday Night Magic, one of the first I had ever attended, where I pitted my ‘Mono-Green Colossus’ deck against anyone who would oppose me. I was promptly destroyed by some folks in their twenties playing competently crafted decks. Nevertheless, that copy of Darksteel Colossus still sits proudly in my binder, even if the deck I initially built around it has been long since disassembled.

Magic: The Gathering is currently home to 114 Golems, with a handful of extra cards that generate Golem tokens such as Tuktuk the Explorer, Golem Foundry and Masterful Replication. Golems are always artifact creatures, and are typically cast for colourless mana with the exception of Glassdust Hulk and Salvage Titan the first of which is cast using white and blue mana, and the latter of which is cast using  black.

Culturally, Golems are drawn from Hebrew folk lore. They were protective beings sculpted from clay or mud.

Golem Gameplay

The fact that all Golems are artifact creatures is both a blessing and a curse. Golems benefit from cards which synergise with artifacts such as Chief of the Foundry, Master of Etherium and Tempered Steel which make them more powerful and Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor which make them cheaper. Tolarian Academy synergises well with Golem decks if, for some reason, you are playing a niche tribal deck in a format where one of the game’s most powerful cards is legal.

Unfortunatley, Golems being artifacts means that they are vulnerable to both creature and artifact removal spells. Cards like Shatterstorm and By Force are a massive threat to you, although such cards are typically too narrow in their use to be run in the main deck and need to be brought in from the side board.  Cards like Reclamation Sage and Thrashing Brontodon are perhaps more of a concern to you.  Though they target less of your Golems at once than a card like Shatterstorm they are versatile enough that they may appear in a deck’s main body of cards, especially in Commander where Reclamation Sage is a staple due to being a useful card which is included in many preconstructed decks.

Golems themselves also provide a variety of effects which synergise with other artifacts, and thus with other Golems. Mycosynth Golem possesses the infamous ‘Affinity for artifacts’ ability and grants it to every artifact creature in your deck when it is in play. Golem Artisan can also be used to buff artifact creatures, including itself, granting them both statistical bonuses and new abilities. Lodestone Golem makes non-artifact spells cost 1 more, a penalty which won’t effect you if you are running an artifact heavy deck, but will frustrate your opponent (or opponents) especially if you have multiple Lodestone Golems out at the same time.

One of the strengths of Golem tribal decks is that that they are quite good at generating mana of many different colours.  Solemn Simulacrum is one of the most popular ways of fetching basic lands outside of green  and happens to be a Golem. The Attendant Cycle from Invasion are five golems who can be sacrificed to give you three mana spread across three colours, whilst Composite Golem from Darksteel can be sacrificed to provide one mana from each of the five colours. The lands ramped out by Solemn Simulacrum or the mana generated through sacrificing Composite Golem can then be used to activate the effects of other Golems. Most notably, by paying one mana of each colour, Etched Monstrosity gains +5/+5 and lets you draw 3 cards..

Precursor Golem is a high risk, high reward Golem tribal card to consider.  The card certainly offers a powerful effect upfront, bringing out three 3/3 Golems for only 5 mana. Precursor Golem  then has an effect which is largely a downside. Whenever an instant or sorcery targets only a single Golem you control, it instead targets every Golem you control. Although this does make combat tricks you cast, like Giant Growth, much stronger, as they power up your entire field, this positive is outweighed by the effects negative implications. Whilst Precursor Golem is in play a single removal spell targeted at one of your Golems will kill them all. Ideally you want to get Precursor Golem killed in combat as quickly as possible, so that you don't have its effect hanging over your head.

Another card to consider when building a Golem tribal deck is Brass Herald. Brass Herald is a Golem who can act as the lord for a specified creature type as it enters play. Although Brass Herald is slightly impractical, and a little underpowered by Modern standards (just compare the Herald to Morophon, the Boundless) it’s still a novel and fun card.  When played in a Golem deck,  Brass Herald actually buffs itself which is pretty neat, if not overly useful. 

The Splicers

Golems are supported by a series of cards known as Splicers. These Splicers were printed in  New Phyrexia in 2011. They aren’t really a cycle (see this video for a definition of cycles and a discussion of their purpose) as they are of varying rarities and aren’t spread across all 5 colours. Splicers exist only in White, Blue and Green. Each of them generates a 3/3 Golem token and grants Golems you control an ability. Blade Splicer grants your Golems First Strike, Sensor Splicer gives them Vigilance, Wing Splicer grants them Flying and Vital Splicer allows them to Regenerate. Master Splicer, rather than granting any abilities, acts as a lord and grants your Golems +1/+1 whilst Maul Splicer generates two 3/3 Golem tokens, along with granting your Golems Trample.

These cards are reasonably powerful. If you’re drafting New Phyrexia they are acceptable picks even if you control no other Golems or means of generating them. Blade Splicer, for instance, generates 4/4 worth of stats spread out over two bodies for only 3 mana. This would be reasonably powerful now and was even more powerful in the typically lower powered Limited environments of 2011. Naturally, however, Golem tribal deck are where these Splicers really shine. In these decks, they are able to buff a wide selection of your creatures, rather than merely a handful of tokens, and work synergistically with one another. Each one of them provides more and more Golems, as well as more and more buffs for those Golems.

Thematically the Splicers represent Phyrexia’s ultimate victory over Mirrodin. They demonstrate a group of human artificers, who have accepted Phyrexia’s ideology of improvement through integration with metal and have melded themselves with machinery.

The spell Splicer’s Skill, in Modern Horizons, acts as an homage to the Splicers. It generates a 3/3 Golem and, borrowing a mechanic from Kamigawa block, can be spliced onto other spells by paying a small cost. This is a piece of game design which is simultaneously singularly clever, and a slightly cheesy joke.

Karn Cards

Easily the most famous Golem in Magic: The Gathering is Karn. Originally crafted from silver by Urza, Karn is one of the longest running characters in Magic: The Gathering’s story. Karn served aboard the Weatherlight, constructed the plane of Argentum, which later became Mirrodin, and now seeks to destroy the Phyrexians who corrupted his creation.

Karn was first printed as Karn, Silver Golem in Urza’s Saga, back in 1998. This is a very evocative card, as it demonstrates Karn’s nature as a gentle giant very well. Karn is a 4/4 for for five mana, however, he gains -4/+4 whenever he blocks or becomes blocked. This demonstrates Karn refusing to use his power to harm opponents and instead focusing on non-violence and self-defence. This version of Karn also allows you to transform a non-creature artifact you control into an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to its converted mana cost.

Karn would not see print again until 2011, 13 years later. He came back in the form of Karn Liberated. Obtaining the spark of the Planeswalker Venser, Karn became capable of travelling across the multiverse. This printing of Karn is an integral component of so called ‘Tron decks’ which use the 3 ‘Tron Lands’ (Urza’s Power Plant, Urza’s Mine and Urza’s Tower) to race out powerful colourless threats quickly.  Karn Liberated acts as a universal removal spell, allowing you to exile any kind of permanent from play, or exile a card from your opponent’s hand. Karn Liberated’s Ultimate ability restarts the game, but allows Karn’s controller to immediately play all the cards exiled using his abilities. This is one of many Planeswalker ultimates that effectively says ‘win the game’.

Taking another long absence, Karn saw print again in 2018’s Dominaria. Karn, Scion of Urza , though not quite as powerful as Karn Liberated, is still an effective and powerful card due to it’s colourless nature letting it easily slot into many decks. This version of Karn’s +1 and -1 Loyalty abilities both essentially allow you to draw cards and it’s ‘ultimate’ costs a mere two loyalty points and enables you to create a Construct artifact creature token with power and toughness equal to the number of artifact creatures you control. This means that Karn, Scion of Urza slots neatly into a Golem tribal deck,  as such a deck would be loaded with artifact creatures to pump the constructs strength up.

Finally, the most recent version of Karn to see print, came out in War of the Spark in 2019. Karn, the Great Creator is a Planeswalker built to synergise with artifacts you control, with a passive ability that prevents opponent from activating abilities on their own artifacts. The card’s +1 loyalty ability is the same as Karn, Silver Golem’s ability to turn your artifacts into creatures and its -2 ability allows you to bring artifacts into your hand from the sideboard or exile.

Arbitrary Grades

Flavour: C+

Golems are a staple of the fantasy genre. The Golems of Magic tend to have their mechanical nature emphasised. I feel that this causes them to occupy a somewhat narrow space creatively. Golems in folklore were sculpted from clay, and they are often depicted being composed of all sorts of materials. The need to make Golems Artifact creatures has resulted in Magic: The Gathering featuring almost exclusively metallic or mechanical Golems. As such I feel there is still a bit of untapped space to explore with the Golems of Magic: The Gathering. With that said Phyrexian Golems, like all creatures from the nightmarish plane, are an interesting synthesis of flesh and metal.

In terms of how ‘Golem Identity’ is conveyed, other than the fact that they are all artifacts, there isn’t really a cohesive thread tying them all together. Karn, Silver Golem’s gentle giant nature, as well as the relatively high number of Golems with Defender, could be an homage to the concept of Golems acting as guardians and protectors in folklore.

There is plenty of room to expand what Golems can do in the future. Gingerbrute represents a step in the right direction, as an edible golem crafted from food. Eldraine’s little gingerbread Golem demonstrates that they can be more than just generic artifact creatures.

Viability: B

Golems are a reasonably fun and powerful tribe to build a deck around. Primarily, this is because they are Artifacts. There is a reason why Mirrodin and Kaldesh are remembered as two of the most powerful blocks in the history of the game. The colourless nature of artifacts allows you to run a far more varied mana base, without hamstringing your ability to bring out threats. You can include powerful Black and White removal spells in a Golem deck, whilst also accessing the mana ramp provided by Green or the card draw provided by Blue. Artifacts also enable the powerful Affinity mechanic

Beyond merely being Artifacts, however, there are several reasons why you might want to build a Golem deck. The Splicers are powerful payoffs which reward decks that run a high number of Golems. You’re also provided with a thematic reason to bring all the Karn Planeswalkers together.

Overall then Golem decks are fun to build and are reasonably powerful, at least by the standards of niche tribal decks.

Best and worst cards:

In this category I feel obligated by my child self (and the story I shared above) to nominate Darksteel Colossus as one of the best cards of the tribe. Yes it’s impractical, yes it’s second ability prevents it from being re-animated forcing you to pay it’s prohibitive mana-cost and yes Blightsteel Colossus is significantly more viable, but I feel like Darksteel Colossus has to make it onto my personal list. The card taught me an important lesson about Magic, bigger doesn’t always mean better and there is more to the game than slamming down the largest creature possible. So Darksteel Colossus made me a better player, meaning it’s improved every deck I’ve built since the impractical mono-green one I made featuring it. This earns it a place as the best Golem card in my personal experience.

For a more genuinely viable ‘best Golem’, however, we should turn our attention to Platinum Emperion. Just like Darksteel Colossus Platinum Emperion is a tad on the expensive side, but it more than makes up for its cost due to its powerful effect. Whilst Platinum Emperion is in play you cannot lose, or gain, life. This forces your opponent to remove it if they want to progress the game, unless their deck is built around milling or another alternate win condition.

In the right deck, Mycosynth Golem is also very powerful. Although its cost is significant, it can be reduced greatly through use of Affinity and Mycosynth Golem can then heavily decrease the cost of future artifacts you play. The aforementioned Blightsteel Colossus can also turn a games around very quickly, if it has time to make it into play.  If Blightsteel Colossus gets through unblocked it instantly destroys an opponent through the poison counters it generates.

At the other end of the spectrum, Phyrexian Hulk is definitely one of the worst Golems in the game, costing 6 mana and providing a meagre stat line of 5/4.  This is especially sad as the Hulk has some of the best flavour text in the game, an Onean nursery rhyme that is simultaneously innocent and morbid.

‘It doesn't think. It doesn't feel.

It doesn't laugh or cry.

All it does from dusk till dawn

Is make the soldiers die.’

So although Phyrexian Hulk is definitely aesthetically chilling, it’s artwork and flavour text can’t save it from its place as one of the game’s weakest Golems.

Junk Golem is also pretty bad, costing four mana it enters play as an 0/0 with three +1/+1 counters. Junk Golem must be sacrificed, unless you remove a +1/+1 counter from it during each of your upkeep phases. You can place more +1/+1 counters on Junk Golem at the cost of discarding a card and paying one mana. Even when playing Madness decks, where discarding cards is actively beneficial, there are far better enablers you can use. In any other kind of deck Junk Golem lives up to its name and is absolute trash.

The Companions of Ikoria: An Entirely Serious Analysis

Here's my biggest and most ambitious project yet. Sitting at half an hour in length with 11 pages of script, I am proud to present 'The Companions of Ikoria: An Entirely Serious Analysis'. Writing and editing this has been quite taxing, but I'm quite pleased with the final product. I suspect I'l take a break from making video content for a while, which means more Unusual Tribes columns will be coming up in the near future.

I Hope you're all coping well in these stressful and uncertain times,
-Macready

Battle For Zendikar vs Shadows Over Innistrad: Lovecraftian Horror In Magic: the Gathering

Hello everyone.  You'll have to pardon my long absence. My laptop broke down and, with the world in it's current situation, getting a replacement was tricky.

Here's a new video essay for all of you regarding how the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft have influenced Magic: the Gathering.

Unusual Tribes 12: Demons

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

after it dies.

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 16^th 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.