Pointed Discussion

This is a big and powerful beater. It has a lot of opportunity as a 1-of in W/B Tokens with Sorin 2.0 and Gather the Townsfolk. While I do agree that it's not prerelease-promo material, it's definitely better than it's current 2.5/5 rating

its like every few years a few people at wizards get drunk and reminisce about how awesome lord of the pit was and say you know what were going to make him again but even better and stronger and better and then they throw up lol. Black white may be one of my favorite combos now

Commander Review: Not useful. Early on you want to use the mana to fetch lands and mana artifacts and stuff, instead of desperately trying to find humans to feed to this guy. And later on it's just a beater, which invites your opponents to kill your humans, so the beater beats you up instead of the opponents.
1.5/5

This card as Prerelease Promo is nothing more than an insult...

Goodbye valuable, playable, and mythic Promos...

You guys are spoiled rotten children.


This is a Transforming Lord of the Pit. Holy WOW! I like this much better than Xathrid Demon, since the Transform mechanic adds more interesting things to the card than simply 'let's make a strictly better version'. Pre-Release Promo's are not supposed to be Tournament Super Staples. That's why Snapcaster Mage wasn't one. What Promo's are supposed to be are cards that make you go 'wow!'-- Timmy Stuff.

This Demon, with his super evil art and the poses that just exude power, are nothing short of Badass.
He also reminds me strongly of Malfegor, not just because he's a Demon, but because I like his normal art better-- and getting this one for free is going to make me REALLY want the normal one, too.

People who forget how to have Timmy and Johnny moments are forgetting MAGIC, and that is a great tragedy sped up by the internet community attempting to race to the best decks all the time. Instead, go out and buy, not a fat pack, not a booster box, not even an Intro Pack. Just go to your local store, drop down $4 for a single booster pack, and actually look at all the cards in the pack. Ask yourself if there is ANY card game out there remotely like Magic the Gathering in terms of gallery-quality art, philosophy 101 lessons in the flavor text, and on top of it it's coming from swords and demons and dragons and wizards and junk. :)


I put forward that unless you can see how amazing Archdemon of Greed is, you can't understand the full awesomeness of the more tournament worthy Garruk, the Veil Cursed.

Does Tajuru Preserver work on that?

Strong and the drawback doesn't look too hard to maintain. BW tokens, or even BU has plenty of humans. Plus perfect Morbid enabler to run alongside Reaper of the Abyss.

I love the return to the demon flavor of old. I don't see it being very useful except in casual.
Off to build B/W Human Sacrifice.dec!

Dude, you only killed and ate a guy, its doesn't make you the "Archdemon" of greed! Jackass!

A lot of people have yet to realize is that the card Personal Sanctuary would be helpful. Or am I not understanding it correctly?

@musicalmtg88

Personal Sanctuary would prevent the damage, but would not stop the demon from tapping itself, which would make him useless unless you had something to keep untapping him, and that untapping could probably be put to use on better things. Best to keep this guy somewhere close by Increasing Devotion.

Wizards thought about returning the demons to their old ways, preRune-Scarred Demon kind of thing, so they did!

I mean, all I see is flavour: it's a demon that feasts off humans. Nothing too special.

However, you can't play him in mono-black. It's nearly impossible. In drafts, you can only used 3 different cards: Chosen of Markov, Skirsdag Flayer, and Wakedancer. Not only that, but the flayer also needs human sacrifices to use his powers to their fullest.

If you were to go mono-black in standard, there is still only 12 black humans, and two are rare (Skirsdag High Priest and Royal Assassin). This means that the demon has to be teamed with another colour. However, since it's original cost needs 2 black mana, you are either restricted to two colours or need a little bit of luck to get those swamps.

It can easily be done, however, alongside white. White is the most human-heavy colour, and, as Totema said about, Thraben Doomsayer is the best choice.

Human gives me wings...

Lord of the Pit's single saving grace was that even if you could not feed him, he'd still be nice enough to punch your opponent in the face for 7 after he smashed you for 7 during your upkeep. Sadly, far too many "new Pitlords" tap down after you fail to pay the upkeep cost, which makes them depressingly easy to deal with. This demon with odd dietary restrictions is one example, Xathrid Demon is another, and even the old Yawgmoth's Demon all suffer from this problem.

Cards like this are never playable outside of Limited or fun decks, but at least let the controller have some fun smacking foes around even if he can't feed his demon and has to take damage from it. Losing to your own cards thanks to a well-placed removal spell is depressing.

Actually there are countless ways to make this card work. Your choices are: Thraben Doomsayer, Increasing Devotion, and Hero of Bladehold just to name a few. Put some tokens on the board and the game is YOURS.

I like this guy. I would like it even more if they had Demons of the other 6 deadly sins as well. But then again crazy parents might have a hissy fit if MTG printed Archdemon of Lust.

Swing and Fling.

Purple people eater :3 well not exactly purple but indeed a people eater

I'm so sick of retarded, Timmy cards.

I'm also sick of the childish straw man fallacy of pretending that the average Johnny's or Spike's (or even the non-retarded Timmy's) objection boils down to "Dies to removal!" It's NOT a problem that a creature dies to removal--it IS a problem if that creature turns removal spells into massive card/tempo advantage--like this card does (ditto for the other cards I've linked to that butt-hurt fanbois get their panties in a bunch about hearing criticism of).

About the only thing I like these cards for are Fling decks.

If anyone has a counterargument to what I've said, please actually address the nuance of my point and don't just post pointless crap like "Ha! Well even Progenitus dies to Geth's Verdict, so there!" as though that addresses ANYTHING about what I've said.

Why all the hate for a 2012 Lord of the Pit? Sure he's not that good, but he's still pretty cool.
I think you all are just angry because you wanted a free Vorapede at the prerelease, just like you got Wurmcoil.

@Paleopaladin: Well, I don't see how anybody can post a counterargument to you being sick of the demons you linked to, and these types of cards in general! If you don't like them, then you don't like them; there's really nothing anybody can say to make you personally feel better about Archdemon of Greed and its ilk.

You've touched on the card/tempo disadvantage that the Archdemon can put you at, but realize that this demon - and all of those demons - represent tempo ADVANTAGE. They're big scary creatures with big scary effects for lower-than-average CMCs (in the time they were printed, anyway). On the turn you choose to flip him, he's a 9/9 with evasion AND trample that, so far, has cost you + one human. If your opponent doesn't have any way of dealing with him, he/she will likely be flattened in a couple of swings, or a swing plus a Fling.

I think the punishment aspect of the "you can't feed me so I'll eat you" mechanic is a pretty traditional way of giving black tempo advantage like this. The card represents EITHER a huge advantage for you OR a huge advantage for your opponent. There's really no middle ground; the longer you fail to kill someone with this card, the more likely that this card will turn around and kill you.

Ultimately, it's an issue of reliability. This is a card that can be very deadly in the right situation, but "the right situation" either requires you to protect him from the ubiquitous removal you play against - perhaps by using a Silence before you decide to flip, swing and fling? - or it requires you to be lucky (or your opponent(s) to be unlucky). Reliability is more important to some people than to others, which is no shock since people play Magic for many different reasons.

It sounds like you are staunchly in the camp of wanting your creatures to be good all the time - minimizing your own risk - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. WotC is printing cards like these for people in the other camps, the ones that revel in unpredictability, or that favour certain artists. If you want me, I'll be over here in Camp Flavour building a shrine for the Kev Walker version of this card.

How about "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a human. If you can't, transform Archdemon of Greed and it deals 9 damage to you."
I think the reception of this guy would just be a lot better this way, because human tokens aren't as readily made as Thrulls or Pests.
@Paleopaladin
Lord of the Pit's excuse is that he was the first one. Liege of the pit is actually quite strong since you can have him pounding in on turn 4 and can ignore the upkeep if he's your only creature. He's quite comparable to Exalted Angel in that respect. No, he's not the strongest creature ever, and you aren't coming out of a trade with Swords to Plowshares or the like with a mana advantage, but he's not going to become your opponent's win condition unless they play with shaky cards like Pacifism.
Archdemon of Greed can't say that. He refuses to work at all if you don't feed him Humans. That's quite a specific palate, and people using this card in their constructed decks will lose to this guy if they plan to flip him. On the other hand, he does allow you to play him as a 4/4 for 5 that you don't flip until your opponent is in KO range. In that respect, he's not a Timmy creature at all, except that he has a lot of big numbers.
If you want a crappy Timmy creature from this set, look at Winthegar Unbound, the gigantic big demon guy who pops out of the worst equipment imagineable.

does archdemon still hurt you if he is permanently tapped, say by dungeon giests. if you have no creatures to sac? because wouldn't the tap be considered him attacking you?

Can I sacrifice my little brother if I run out creatures on the board?

Do I smell Sundial of the Infinite ?

@HydeAndSeek

Sure, you can respond to the archdemon's effect by ending your turn, and you won't have to sac a creature or take 9 damage. The problem with that is, well, ending your turn before your upkeep is a free time walk for your opponents. You don't get to draw, either, because upkeep happens before draw.

Attach obligatory Commander's Authority here.

EDIT:
@konokono
Don't I wish... XD

My friend runs one of these in a white/black human sacrifice deck thats really pretty scary. It uses things like Doomed Traveler, Elgaud Inquisitor, Mausoleum Guard, Unruly mob, and the like to milk as much mileage as possible from the death of each human. You sac humans to this guy to flip him and keep him on your side all the while pumping a steady stream of 1/1 fliers he can use to peck away at you with (take 9 from one guy or take 3 from these weenies and lose a creature to my 9/9 kinda situations) or chump block. When each human dies Unruly Mob gets scarier as well.

There are other cards that allow you to sac humans/creatures to destroy creatures, sac to gain life, or sac for other types of effects. And then theres Skirsdag High Priest that allows you to pump 5/5 creatures into play when something dies. Eventually the deck becomes extremely overwhelming w/ a 9/9, a couple 5/5, an Unruly Mob in the high single digits, and a seemingly endless stream of 1/1 fliers that he built on the backs of destroying your critters and life gain. Ugh.

So ya, welcome to Magic, the game of turing downsides into upsides. So if you think this is some stupid Spike or Timmy card cuz its big and scary and only good for Fling, check your brew IQ.

Everybody here has forgotten about some VERY useful cards for saccing: changelings. If you get a couple of Ghostly Changelings and a couple of undying enchantments for them, you can reuse your changelings for one extra turn each. After they have +1/+1 counters on them, use cards like Grave Exchange to bring them back. In theory, you can use three ghostly changelings to keep the archdemon of greed on the field for eight turns or more.

I've only seen this side of him once, when I had already won the game and was showing off.
I attacked once, and my opponent popped my last human so he's done me about as much harm as good.
But he did make nice fodder for my Bone Splinters.
Trade him out for anything. Wurmcoil Engine, if you have one.
Demonic Taskmaster if you need something to sacrifice things to. Abyssal Persecutor if you have something to sacrifice him to. Bloodgift if you like his cost but don't want to structure around him.

This guy is awesome with Increasing Devotion, Gather the Townsfolk, and Doomed Traveller. I run him in a white/black sac deck with some added curse power and it is pretty sweet, esp. after you have sacrificed a Bitterheart Witch to play a Curse of Bloodletting. 18 flying trample damage FTW!

You could always give him lifelink until you get more humans on the board. Personal Sanctuary works nicely, too.

Tainted Strike is also a thing. A cute casual thing, but a thing nonetheless.

Give it Lifelink. then you never have a worry. and a thousand-year elixir. then it merely has another way to untap for {1}

@Radagast: Y'know, it just taps him, it doesn't give him summoning sickness. You could always employ an alternate means of untapping?

i kind of like the idea of transforming this guy, swinging for 9, then casting switcheroo. (of course only if they control no humans)

It feeds on Little Girls. >:D

"I AM COMPLEEEEEEEEEEEETE"

The art is still epic. Maybe with Orzhov making its debut in Standard this might see some play....maybe not.

@konokono: I dunno, it depends if he's really Human-type, to my knowledge a lot of little brothers tend to be Imp or Pest-types.

One of the potential combos someone could try is drop it, transform it, swing with it, then Switcheroo it with any of your opponent's creatures. After that, it's like a time bomb each of their upkeeps.

Shadowborn Apostle.

Once you pop, you just can't stop. Unless you tap and deal 9 damage to your controller.

I love arresting this.