For those of you that remember Jerry Maguire, the deck we’re piloting today reminds me of a pretty famous line from the film:
“You had me at Demigod of Revenge…”
For those that haven’t seen the movie, this is the part where Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, tries to cast Demigod of Revenge, and Renee Zellweger’s character asks him if the trigger is still on the stack or if it’s resolved yet.
Really touching film, I highly recommend it.
In all seriousness though, there was apparently a 1k that took place in Lakeland, Florida about two weeks back, and it was won by Pete Casella with the following list.
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Blood Moon
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan’s Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Terminate
2 Bedlam Reveler
4 Demigod of Revenge
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Graven Cairns
1 Mountain
1 Smoldering Marsh
5 Swamp
1 Temple of Malice
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Hangarback Walker
1 Kolaghan’s Command
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Rakdos Charm
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Shattering Spree
1 Slaughter Games
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
As I was saying…Demigod of Revenge. That’s a heckuva card, especially in conjunction with things like Liliana of the Veil and Faithless Looting to discard extra copies. Realistically, I would probably only throw one into the graveyard. I’d prefer to cast the second, third, and fourth as legitimate threats. We also have Kolaghan’s Command to return one to our hand in case they accidentally all end up in the grumper. Let’s see if we can win some games with the spirit avatar that looks like a demon.
As you can see, the deck performs pretty solidly against decks that seem to swarm the ground. This is thanks to our three main deck Anger of the Gods, and the addition of one more in the sideboard, along with a Ratchet Bomb and an Engineered Explosives.
Conversely, when the only creatures your opponent plays have four toughness, like Thing in the Ice or opposing Bedlam Revelers, then your Anger of the Gods and Lightning Bolts are pretty underwhelming.
Just like some other red decks in Modern, we’re taking advantage of the full suite of four Blood Moons in our deck. Let’s be real: sometimes you just win after resolving a Blood Moon. It isn’t the fairest way to win, but it still works. Just like with our removal spells, however, there are definitely times where Blood Moon is pretty terrible, like against the mono-red decks, or even two-color red decks.
And oh, Bedlam Reveler, you little scamp you. Now this guy is a demon! No, wait…it’s a devil. Well, this is awkward. Either way, it’s nice to be able to cast Faithless Looting and discard a bunch of useless cards in a particular matchup, thereby lowering the cost of this eight mana Ancestral Recall. This is basically just Treasure Cruise on a 3/4 most of the time, right? Heck, it even has prowess, like the rest of the cards in that set!
With Dredge decks so popular right now, I could definitely see adding more hate to the sideboard than the single Surgical Extraction we have right now. Rakdos Charm is nice, and pretty versatile, but when we’re trying to cast Blood Moons it can be a little difficult to keep BR up. Sometimes a single colorless from something like Relic of Progenitus, or no mana at all from the likes of Nihil Spellbomb, might be a lot more efficient, and I know it would have helped us against the Reveillark deck (not that it’s a huge part of the metagame, by any means).
Either way, you can always tell how strong a win condition is by whether or not your opponent will scoop to it being cast. They did, and I think Demigod of Revenge is an awesome dude. Deck was sweet, but I might do a little tweaking. Might even find room for a couple Talismans or Signets somewhere. Thanks for reading and I’ll catch ya next week!
Frank Lepore
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