Four mana and sacrifice a creature seems like a
fair price to pay for a 5/4 flyer with undying,
since you're also implied to get a 6/5 flyer out
of the deal. But watch out! When undying brings
it back, its ETB trigger will go off again and
you'll have to sacrifice another creature. If
you didn't have that many creatures to begin
with, a kill spell at the wrong time could force
you to make a tough decision. And Undying won't
save the Demonlord from a Day of Judgment,
unless you regenerated something else you don't
mind sacrificing.
That said, I'd say it's still worth playing as
long as you've got a decent number of other
creatures. If your opponent points a kill spell
at this to make you sacrifice another creature
of your choice, he's basically giving you a 6/5
and letting you choose what dies instead of just
using the spell on the creature he wanted to
kill-- a bad play unless you were down to just
this and Blightsteel Colossus.
Wow. And I thought Lord of the Pit was
high-risk, high-reward. This is a whole other
level. This creature really wants to be combined
with creatures that don't mind dying (Pelakka
Wurm?); other than that, I don't imagine he'll
appeal much to 60-card deck builders. On the
other hand, the stats are pretty efficient, and
undying is a strong ability (a very strong
ability, in fact). One to keep an eye on,
perhaps.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
basically about the beatdowns. This demon
requires a sacrifice but gives you a solid 5/4
flying body for four mana and when it returns
you get a 6/5 but you have to sacrifice two
creatures total. In standard the double
sacrifice which you have to be prepared for is
rough but using other undying creatures such as
Geralfs Messengar or just losing advantage by
sacrificing creatures. This card is quite
powerful but I don’t see it making much of an
impact in standard as a deck to utilize its
sacrifice effect is not one of the most powerful
things you can be doing with your time and mana.
In modern, legacy, and vintage this creature
while all right just doesn’t provide enough
oomph to make it worthy of an inclusion and just
doesn't have a home. In casual and multiplayer
there is an abundance of creatures that want to
be sacrificed such as undying or persist or just
good abilities of creatures hitting the
graveyard, demons also have some support and are
a popular tribe making this creature an
interesting choice, the only problem is the
possible duel sacrifice which may set your board
behind. In limited this is somewhat of a bomb
card there exists a small amount of removal so
even if you sacrifice some of your other guys
your opponents may be hard pressed to deal with
this creature. Overall a powerful creature for
beatdowns but has a significant draw back that
may hamper its usage in formats.
Today's card of the day is Demonlord of
Ashmouth which is a four mana Black 5/4 with
Flying, Undying, and requires a sacrifice when
it comes into play or it'll be exiled.
With other Undying creatures, sacrifice themed
cards, or tokens there's no shortage of options
to fuel this bargain priced evasive threat.
As one of the better options to top off a Black
mana curve this will see some play and likely
become more popular as other choices rotate out
of current formats.
For Limited this is a big threat as a large
creature with evasion and some removal
protection, that is heavily balanced by
requiring the sacrifice. In a format where
topdecks are often critical and creatures can be
in short supply, even when the crux of winning
most games, it is a noteworthy drawback.
The double Black out of four is also a minor
hindrance, but overall both problems are not bad
enough to avoid picking this first in Booster.
A Sealed with a decent enough Black pool,
possibly including Undying or even a source of
tokens in any color, should strongly consider
running the Demonlord as well. In either
case support goes a long way to making this more
reliable and keeping it from being a dead card
in hand.
