A Deal With The Devil

This Pioneer season began on March 22 when I placed an order for some blue cards. With Pro Tour Karlov Manor in the rearview mirror and the format seeming very explored, I set out to learn the most winning archetype in preparation for the upcoming Pioneer season. After all, Izzet Phoenix had won 57 percent of its matches in Chicago, where the best players in the world were all aiming for it. Any discomfort I had playing this archetype would have to be allayed by its results.

That is, until Cory Lack reached out suggesting trying adding [card]Coveted Falcon[/card] and [card]Demonic Pact[/card] to Gabriel Nassif's Dimir Control deck. Several things drew us to this archetype: namely, the combo enabled you to play a game where you weren't reliant on winning the game through traditional means, [card]Dig Through Time[/card] was and is a Busted Magic Card, and [card]Deadly Cover-Up[/card] was an fresh and attractive answer to the format's threats.

The primary draw to the Pact combo is it just wins the game, and several of the most popular decks in the format had no answers to an enchantment; Rakdos Vampires has no card that can remove it from play, and Phoenix has a pair of bounce spells in their 75. These decks already have somewhat fragile game plans: Phoenix with very few threats in their deck, and Vampires with little ability to close the game if it is forced to take a [card]Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord[/card] and [card]Vein Ripper[/card] line where its combo goes interrupted.

The deck also was surprisingly nimble; you could win with a conventional Rakdos gameplan, but also had combo and control-combo elements that enabled it to play an entirely different game from its opponents.

This archetype would earn a few nicknames in our group chat: The Bargain Bin, the Rak Pact, Next Level Inverter, Trix, or just "the Pact deck".

This deck showed promise and the suggestion of [card]Beseech the Mirror[/card] was the piece that got me really excited. My first major contribution was to suggest we add red to the deck for [card]Fable of the Mirror-Breaker[/card], an infamously good card for tying loose ends of a deck together. At this point, my first version of Bargain Bin looked like this:

I was initially enamored by having a reactive, highly flexible midrange deck with a variety of maindeck bullets for the format. [card]Ashiok, Dream Render[/card] was a card that Team Handshake had just included in the maindeck of their Izzet Phoenix deck at the Pro Tour, and a copy of [card]Unmoored Ego[/card] gave us a chance against Lotus Field. Pact felt up to the power curve of the format, so we began to tune this archetype for the next few weeks.

Ultimately, Deadly Cover-Up ended up being one of the most dissonant cards with the rest of the deck. Five mana is a lot in any format, but especially Pioneer. At the same time, I was very impressed by [card]Extinction Event[/card] and set out to make it a more core part of the deck's strategy. The creature metagame of the format is very centralized on certain costs:

• Izzet Phoenix is entirely 2s and 4s, with the exile effect being key to the matchup.
• Rakdos Vampires is primarily 2s and 6s, and the prevailing build at the time also favored Archfiend of the Dross.
• Amalia consists of primarily 2s, and the exile has additional benefits against Return to the Ranks.

Around this point, I became interested in dropping the blue in the deck in favor of playing Rakdos, although still splashing some number of Coveted Falcon. [card]Torch the Tower[/card] is a big pickup for this strategy: it is both the best answer to [card]Arclight Phoenix[/card] and many other cheaper creatures, but it is a buyout for Pact that also enables use of some other cards such as [card]Treacherous Blessing[/card] and [card]Case of the Stashed Skeleton[/card].

Ultimately, the Falcons would come to be dropped as well in favor of just having a single copy of the [card]Harmless Offering[/card] needed to combo. Later I will share a list with two copies; I was a coward that day.

At this point, the non-negotiable portion of the deck was this:
[deck]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Torch the Tower
2 Fatal Push
2 Sheoldred's Edict
4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
3 Demonic Pact
4 Beseech the Mirror
1 Harmless Offering
24 Lands
[/deck]

80% of our maindeck felt cohesive. The deck was very good at keeping the game small, and when both players were under restrictive card and mana requirements, Demonic Pact really flourished. We tried a number of shells that this could play within, each of which had some benefits and some weaknesses.

[card]Case of the Stashed Skeleton[/card] is frequently found in Rakdos combo decks in Pioneer such as [card]Transmogrify[/card]/[card]Indomitable Creativity[/card]. While it is low power level, it does enable you to Beseech for both the Demonic Pact up front, and the Harmless Offering on the way out. We played between 2 and 4 copies of this card at most times. It suffers on defense for obvious reasons, and can be trimmed in sideboarding.

[card]Treacherous Blessing[/card] was the most impressive card to use as bargain fodder. When casting a spell, costs are paid before it is put on the stack, so sacrificing Blessing to Bargain works the way you would like it: you don't lose any life.

[card]Mazemind Tome[/card] is a great tool for this style of deck. The card selection is nice in games where you are trying to bridge to your fourth turn, and it is a nice payoff no matter how you dispose of it: improving your draw and recouping some life, getting ahead in the endgame, or bargained away to Beseech. I would often have 2 or 3 copies in my deck.

[card]Reckoner Bankbuster[/card] is a stronger card than [card]Mazemind Tome[/card] generically, and we did play with lists that included Bankbuster as well as [card]Bloodtithe Harvester[/card]. However, the sum of your parts is often less cohesive than other midrange strategies. Team Handshake described attacking with Bankbuster in Standard as "drawing [card]Boros Charm[/card]". This deck struggled to crew Bankbuster often, and mana efficiency carries such a premium in Pioneer that we found Mazemind Tome was often more effective.

In service of this small-game plan, [card]Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger[/card] became very attractive. Kroxa is both a way to trade cards early and a single threat that can solo a low-resource game late. By playing a couple copies of Kroxa, you also make a maindeck copy of Ashiok more attractive.

If you want to attack more, I would also recommend finding space for [card]Ob Nixilis, the Adversary[/card]. Kroxa and Ob Nixilis play very well together.

[card]Sheoldred, the Apocalypse[/card] is a card I've been repeatedly unimpressed by in these creature-light strategies. While she can solo a game, opponents are often left with some removal they don't have a viable target for, and Sheoldred will often be a liability. In closed decklists or against opponents with few sideboard options, they will often have creature removal that is otherwise very weak against you.

Another angle you can take, which would forgo Kroxa, Sheoldred, or [card]Hostile Investigator[/card], would be to add [card]Atraxa, Grand Unifier[/card] to the deck. You can play either [card]Transmogrify[/card] or [card]Indomitable Creativity[/card] but each has deckbuilding restrictions for creatures and/or artifacts. This version of the deck ultimately had a bit too much pulling in different directions.

One disagreement Cory and I had was whether to play a 25th land or a copy of [card]The Celestus[/card]. I personally love my Emotional Support Celestus, but more lands are always welcome. Being a two-color deck you can get a number of utility lands in the mix; I would recommend some copies of [card]Mirrex[/card] as an alternate way of closing a drawn-out game that also can be bargained.

I registered this deck at the Dreamwizards RCQ on April 20:

A quick tournament report, for the culture:

R1 Izzet (draw) ✅✅
R2 Mono-W Humans (draw) ✅❌❌
R3 Rakdos Non-Vamps (play) ✅✅
R4 Rakdos Transmog (play) ✅✅
R5 Intentional Draw
QF Heroic (draw) ✅❌✅
SF Izzet (draw) ❌✅❌

I lost to Jarvis Yu, who was playing Izzet Phoenix with the newly-printed [card]Proft's Eidetic Memory[/card].

Over the next couple weeks I drifted away from this archetype, towards danker pastures but kept my mind in Beseech the Mirror territory (at SCG Richmond, I played a variant on Jason Ye's [card]Spelunking[/card] archetype, helpful article found here). My experience there highlighted that Beseech into a format that is already amicable to Ashiok is a bit of a rough sell, but I still believe these archetypes are inherently very powerful. Cory would top 4 his first RCQ with the deck as well, so it has put up some preliminary results in its first outings.

Some brief matchup notes:

Izzet Phoenix

This deck is built from the ground up with Izzet's threats in mind. Keep your life total up and play such that you don't randomly lose if they take 3 turns in a row.

Rakdos Vampires

You share a number of core competencies with the Vampires deck, but they can stumble into a win via creatures and you cannot. However, they can't interact with a Demonic Pact. In this matchup, your goal is to donate the pact as soon as possible, as the most likely way you lose (after surviving Vein Ripper) is to your own Pact after they strip your hand.

Waste Not

Similar principles here as the Vampires deck, but they don't apply the same pressure on your life total. Aim to fast combo here; pass a Pact with 3 or 4 modes remaining and winning feels like a flex. One card I found that was effective in this matchup is [card]Invasion of Kaldheim[/card]

Amalia

Very even matchup, as we tried a number of things but couldn't break it wide open. The most common way to lose here is they combo, you answer their Amalia, but they scry a card like [card]Aetherflux Reservoir[/card] or [card]Return to the Ranks[/card] to the top of their deck and win on a subsequent turn. I have [card]Torpor Orb[/card] in my sideboard primarily for this matchup.

Monastery Swiftspear (Burn)

This is a matchup where Kroxa can shine. Pact is very difficult to set up here; even if you get a [card]Warleader's Helix[/card], taking a turn off to cast Pact may be too much to recover from.

Monastery Swiftspear (Heroic)

Heroic, on the other hand, is a much more palatable matchup. Don't run into an obvious hexproof spell and let your opponent make the first move. If they're playing defensively, you can put Pact into play, which enables you to start your next turn by forcing action for free with a [card]Mind Rot[/card] or Helix.

Lotus Field

This is a race. If you play a maindeck Ashiok or [card]Necromentia[/card] you have a much better shot to win. They can easily search for Boseiju to counter your Pact strategy, so keeping them on low resources and winning with something like Kroxa is a common endgame. If your local metagame is heavy on Lotus Field, I would recommend playing a [card]Krenko's Buzzcrusher[/card] to search for.

Niv to Light

Close to unfavored matchup that depends on their removal suite. Anecdotally, the combination of [card]Leyline Binding[/card] and [card]Vanishing Verse[/card] make it difficult to win with Pact, and the rest of their deck makes winning a conventional game difficult.

Azorius Control

Difficult matchup to crack, but it feels like we have all the tools. Preboard, you'll struggle with drawing dead cards, and postboard they get access to cards like [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] that disrupt your ability to win with Pact. This is a matchup where cards like [card]Hostile Investigator[/card] and Kroxa will pay off big.

I want to also note that when played into an opposing Leyline, you cannot put "Target Opponent Discards Two Cards" on the stack. It's functionally a time walk that you can lose to.

What's Next?

While the format won't change until Bloomburrow in July, I believe this is a viable strategy to bring to your RCQ this season. Things may change by the time RC Washington, D.C. rolls around, but I will have this deck on my radar to work on for that tournament.