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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Ogres and Demons
June 16, 2009

Hey BMoor,

It has been a while since I asked you for help and I hope you could help me with this deck I'm currently running.

Kamigawa brought us a lot of cool tribes but the one that called out to me were the oni and ogres for their interesting tribal interactions. Don't get me wrong, each of the other tribes in Kamigawa were interesting in their own way, but it was the flavor aspect of the ogre and oni that drew me in. Everything from the ogre's brutality and blood magic all the way to the oni corrupting the denizen of Kamigawa is just amazing to me in terms of flavor. Now I've been playing a demon/ogre deck for some time between Champions of Kamigawa and until around Dissension. It handled itself okay, but never really won me that many games. So I scrapped the deck and hoped for some even better demon and/or ogres. Well, come Lorwyn, my hopes came true by introducing us to the changelings. Now I can have an ogre and a demon on the table at the same time. So after some extensive and excruciating playtesting, here is what I have so far.

Creatures: 22
2 Tombstalker
3 Grinning Demon
2 Yukora, the Prisoner
4 Taurean Mauler
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Drooling Ogre
3 Shriekmaw

Other Spells: 16
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Rakdos Signet
3 O-Naginata
3 Duress

Lands: 22
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Tomb of Urami
6 Mountain
8 Swamp

Two of the best ogres I have played with when it came to this archetype has always been Drooling Ogre and Jagged Poppet. I have situated my spell line-up to take advantage of their abilities. One of the biggest problems that I had when it came to ogres was trying to find a decent two drop. I had my choices between Hasran Ogress, Raving Oni Slave, or Drooling Ogre. Seeing as how Oni Slave has failed terribly for me, Ogress left with me the same impression. So I vouched for Drooling Ogre as my two drop ogre of choice. With a fair amount of artifact spells, I'm fairly certain to keep Drooling Ogre on my side of the table most of the game. Since I'm going to have little-to-no hand to speak of, Jagged Poppet can capitlize on this fairly easily. Plus forcing my opponent to discard from a 6/4 hellbent trampling Poppet clinches the deal for me.

My artifact line-up is rather simple. Pyrite is an excellent first turn drop that offers me a little versatility by either drawing me a card or burn that bypasses pro-red. Naginata is another of my one drops that gives any demon or ogre +3/+0 and trample so I don't get chump blocked by 1/1 tokens all day. Sword of Fire and Ice doesn't really need explanation as for why it's so good.

Most of my other card choices are pretty self-explanatory. Shriekmaw doubles as early game removal or a 3/2 beater later on. Taurean Mauler can piggyback off of other tribal decks while being a demon and ogre for my team. Plus if they don't deal with Mauler early on, they're going to be staring down a 4/4 or 5/5 as it beats face. Finally, Tombstalker comes down later on at a cheaper cost by eating away at any previously used Duress, Shriekmaw, Spellbomb, or any cards discarded from Poppet that are laying around ueslessly in my graveyard.

My mana base needs to be more refined a bit more, but it has been doing okay for the time being.

I hope you could help me out. If not, al least thanks for reading this.

Thanks

Brian



Looking over this deck, I'd say this is a prime example of why Kamigawa block was not well received by players. It had a lot of potential types of decks to build, and each of them had its problems.

The Demons and Ogres of Kamigawa shared a ritualistic bond of master and servant. Flavor-wise, the ogres would kill for the purpose of drawing blood, which they would then offer their demonic masters in tribute. Mechanic-wise, this was a simple tribal bond much like any other tribe, only all the cards that want you to control a Demon are Ogres, and all the cards that want you to control an Ogre are Demons. And since Demons are typically bigger and cost more than Ogres, the result is an Ogre/Demon tribal deck that uses Ogres in the early turns, then drops one of several ferocious Demons.

So what's the problem? Well, unlike most tribes, where your creatures make each other stronger, the Ogres and Demons were all bigger than their mana cost should allow with some hefty drawbacks. The tribal bonus you got wasn't making your creatures bigger or giving you abilities that cared about them, it was turning off your own creatures' drawbacks. And both the Ogres and the Demons had drawbacks. Since your Ogres were smaller and cheaper, that meant that you often had to grit your teeth and suffer the Ogre's drawback until you could drop a Demon, and once you did you could find yourself suddenly Ogreless thanks to Hideous Laughter and staring down a pretty painful drawback to your Demons. And the only real compromise was the card Oni Possession, a three-mana black enchantment that could make a creature a Demon (and give it +3/+3 and trample)-- but that card also had a disgustingly steep drawback! And it didn't turn off no matter what creature type you controlled!

So, looking over Brian's deck, I find it a little humorous and a little sad that he's actually taken out almost all the Demons and Ogres that actually care about Ogres and Demons. None of his Ogres care aout Demons any more, and his only Demon that cares about Ogres-- Yukora the Prisoner-- has a drawback that doesn't turn off if he controls an Ogre. It makes him sacrifice all his creatures except for Ogres, but everything else still eats it if Yukora dies.

The first thing I want you to do is to replace Yukora. Your best bets are probably the twins, Gutwrencher and Painwracker Oni. Yes, they cost one more mana and have one less toughness, but that's okay. They still have 5 power, and they have trample and fear respectively, as opposed to Yukora who just gets chump blocked all day. And their drawbacks can be completely ignored just by having an Ogre on the table.

Next, Grinning Demon can go. Like Oni Possesion I mentioned earlier, Grinning Demon doesn't give you any way of turning off its drawback. The whole point of a Demon/Ogre deck is to get Demons and not have to pay them, because your Ogres absolve you. You can replace Grinning Demon with the other twin above-- whichever you don't replace Yukora with-- but since you don't seem to mind paying 2 life for your demons, I recommend Seizan, Perverter of Truth. With him, you at least get 2 cards out of the deal. True, your opponent also gets 2 cards, but he also takes 2 life for them, and he's staring down a 6/5 swinging at him, so his life is likely to be cut shorter than yours. And besides, you've got a Poppet to beat those cards out of him.

Oh, wait, you probably don't want extra cards for the Poppet, do you? Although honestly, getting extra cards is almost always better than having hellbent active. Just play out your hand as fast as you can. Your cheap artifacts will help with that.

Next, your Ogres. You seem against losing life to your Ogres (though not to your Demons?) so Raving Oni-Slave is out. What should come in, though, is Blood Speaker. Once he comes out, you can go fetch as many Demons as you like. In Kamigawa block, he was the Demon/Ogre deck. You pretty much couldn't have one without him, or at least not one worth playing.

Finally, I think Duress should become either Necrogen Spellbomb or Scepter of Fugue, to support Drooling Ogre. The Spellbomb is cheaper, but the Scepter can be re-used to just tear your opponent's hand apart.

Good luck, and may the streets run red with the blood you shall feed to your demonic overlords!

~BMoor