Pointed Discussion

What's a card that profits off of bunches and bunches of Humans entering the battlefield quickly and cheaply?

Oh, yeah, all the Human support cards that are rotating out of Standard really soon. Ah well, at least we have Xathrid Necromancer and sac outlets.

The demon thing is fringe. I doubt it'll ever happen much. It's just card disadvantage.

My new Mono-Black deck:
Shadowborn Apostle x60

Relentless Apostles.

I have a hilarious idea for a deck. Sacrifice six of these and search for a changeling and put it into play just to make your friends go "WTF?!". Worth.

I'll be building an EDH deck with these :)

Also, I've been waiting for this guy for like.. 6 months. So cool for demon players

Good luck actually using his ability without a combo.

120 of those
90 Swamps
30 Islands
4 Battle of Wits
4 Rune-Scarred Demon

Add dual lands and whatever other cards you want(Sphinx of Chimes, anyone?) and see how it goes.

As if we needed more ways to cheat out Griselbrand early.

EDH Deck idea:
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker as the general
Around 30 of these guys
A lot of sweet Demons
Thrumming Stone

Fill it out with 'staple' EDH cards, and you've got a fantastically horrible deck. Just the way I like it. :D

bonkers with shirei in commander.

I feel this is a terrible card. What kills it is sacrificing 6. While that might be a symbolic number, that is likely more of these guys then you will have in your starting hand, the definition of an all in strategy. Not only that imagine how terrible it would be for what your pulling to get removed instantly.

I've just realized the obviously intentional combo with Shadowborn Demon.

Goddammit Wizards.

EDH deck with random 5-colour general. I like horde of notions cause he is cool.

Run a ton of these guys, bloodbond march, sphynx of chimes, thrumming stone, and all those types of cards, and then run scary demons that answer lots of situations. You're in all 5 colours so you can run literally any demon in the game.

I'm more interested in the fact that the number 6 is being spotlighted here rather than the traditional 7 that's used to represent demons in MtG. Game balance, or are they no longer shying away from Number of the Beast references?

28 of this
4 demon of death's gate
3 lightning greaves
1 tragic slip
4 dark ritual
20 swamps

Dark Prophecy Ekri is going to be very busy soon.

I love cards with no deck inclusion limit.
Which might be weird to say, since this is only the second card to get that treatment (or at least the third to be designed with that intention).

Unfortunately, the reason this one got the "basic" honorific is the reason why it's not that interesting at the same time.

Six creatures is a lot by itself, and it wouldn't even have been necessary to even require six times one very particular type of card at the same time to do that.

In comparison, Dark Supplicant does something similar and requires only two other sacrifices besides himself that share his creature type.
He is restricted to summoning Scion of Darkness as opposed to Shadowborn Apostle, who, aside from the obvious choice, could visually summon any demon, Scion included.
I see that Wizards wanted to change Dark Supplicant's formula since he becomes very powerful when you manage to sacrifice him with two other cheap clerics, but he still wasn't broken because of that.

Also it bugs me a bit that Shadowborn Apostle can only find Demons in your library. When you manage to pull his ability off, you should be allowed to search in the graveyard and even exile as well, as it is, again, with Dark Supplicant. Also, the activation cost seems unnecessary as well.

Oh well. Enough whining. Now how could we make use of this card itself?
"Six creatures named Shadowborn Apostle" is just such a huge requirement.
Tokens and Mirrorweave might be one way to pull it off more easily.
But at that point, you probably have better chances of winning by targeting a moderately big creature instead of targeting the tiny Apostle to sacrifice them all for one big demon.

Since they're 1/1 one-drops, the trick might lie in simply swarming them on the battlefield by using effects that let you draw cards and add mana for each creature.

Surprisingly, some of the most useful cards seem to be white:
- Proclamation of Rebirth seems like a great choice since it can get half of the Apostles you need. Since you can have any number of them in your deck, you might easily get three of them in the graveyard by milling yourself. Or simply by carelessly chump-blocking with them in the earlier turns.
- Ranger of Eos. There are better uses with him, but he can get you two more apostles. Not that finding them should be hard, depending on how many your deck is using.
- Citanul Flute. As with the Ranger, you only need this if your library doesn't brim with Apostles already.

There might be some instricate deck designs that can pull her off nicely,
but i can't quite think of something convincing right now.

Bonkers with Bloodbond March: Whenever you play an Apostle, every one you've sacrificed, discarded, or dredged into your grave will come back to life, ready for another go. Likewise, if any copies of the demon you fetch are in your grave, they'll return too. Harvester of Souls would fit well in such a build, since every subsequent Apostle activation will draw you six cards. Odds are, one of those cards will be another Apostle, which when played will bring them all back again, and then you can sac them to draw six more cards, and...

Get this:

60 Swamps
20 Islands (probably a more sophisticated land base would be preferable)
140 Shadowborn Apostles
4 Rune-Scarred Demon
4 Battle of Wits

Search for Rune-Scarred, then search for Battle of Wits, then proceed to win.

Great combo with Grave Pact, Blood Artist, and Thrumming Stone. This also gives you something good to use to cheat Demon of Death's Gate out. Imagine, sac three creatures, pay six life. Well three creatures just died, so Blood Artist gets you three life back and lets you deal three damage to your opponent. Grave Pact triggers, your opponent has to sac three guys. That nets you three more life and you deal three more damage. Then your 9/9 flying, trampler hits. So with the perfect hand, turn 4 you delt 6 damage, killed three of your opponents creatures, and got a huge creature out with virtually no draw back. Epic.

This + Immortal Servitude could be pretty fun in Standard

Unlimited number, and only to cast it?!? Hmmmm... I can 30x of these and 26x swamps... and 4x Demon of Death's Gate. Draw/mulligan until I have just one Demon of Death's Gate in my hand, cast him on turn 2 ------> win.

Turn 1: Swamp, Shadowborn Apostle
Turn 2: Swamp, 2x Shadowborn Apostle: sacrifice 3 Apostles and pay 6 life, 9/9 with flying and trample ----> cruise to a win.

And if you are really unlucky, having so many of these minions will bring you 6 rather quickly. And then you wouldn't even have to pay 6 life.

Of course there is risk, but isn't that the flavor of black cards anyway?

A bunch of these dudes, a couple Griselbrand, four Sign in Blood, and an Immortal Servitude or two and a bunch of swamps and you have yourself a deck.

While he will never be very competitive, he is a very fun card has nice flavour.

5/5

I guess the "Basic Creature" mechanic is now offically in black's color pie? But why?

@Continue

"Shadowborn Apostle’s first ability lets you ignore only the “four-of” rule. It doesn’t let you ignore format legality."

Pretty sure this means no EDH...

Six apostles: "We gladly spill our blood to summon our lord, Shadowborn Demon!"
...
Griselbrand: Sup.

Basic Creature — Human Cleric

@sceadu: Card rules overwrite other rules. Basic rule of Magic.

@nod1409: By "format legality", they mean which formats it's legal in (for example, you can't use this in SoM block constructed).

You can, in fact, have any number of these in an EDH deck, contrary to what I thought.

Xathrid necromancer, that is all....

Fun with Slaughter Games

@sceadu: Shadowborn Apostle's first ability trumps 100.2a and 903.5b, but not 903.5c or 903.5a

Damn, this was a much needed addition. Now I can play an actual, working Demon deck (Thrumming Stone FTW)!

Someone tell me if I am correct the limit on a card played in a format does not determine format legality correct? A friend and I ate in conflict about the apostle above and he says you can only run 1 copy I say otherwise well because I've seen the rulings on the card and I've seen other forums say the supporting facts I have stated so someone please answer my question thanks

You can't run more than one in commander. I've been playing it for years look up the rules of commander.

Edit*
@6mortifer9 well in the old rules before EDH became a recognized and supported format there was a rule against having multiple relentless rats in your deck. I was unaware that they didn't keep that ruling. In my opinion though there should be a rule against because it was against the essence of Commander(EDH).

Why can't this be a Basic Creature?

I know how to not only beat this deck, but make into an easy kill for your opponent.

I love this card.
All you have to do is have a Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker and like 40 of these guys.
Take your favorite demon, a Thrumming stone, and some desperate research and you have a stew.

Check the rulings, people:
"Shadowborn Apostle’s first ability lets you ignore only the “four-of” rule. It doesn’t let you ignore format legality."
In other words, you can only have one of this in EDH, just like any other card. Which makes it useless in that format.

Okay... The EDH question is obnoxious, but...

The first ruling on the card's page is a shortened version of rule 112.6m, which states:

112.6m: An ability that modifies the rules for deck construction functions before the game begins.
Such an ability modifies not just the Comprehensive Rules, but also the Magic: The Gathering
Tournament Rules and any other documents that set the deck construction rules for a specific
Constructed format. However, such an ability can’t affect the format legality of a card,
including whether it’s banned or restricted. The current Magic: The Gathering Tournament
Rules can be found at Wizards.com/WPN/Events/Rules.aspx.

If you have trouble with that, let me explain: The rule of four is a deck construction rule set up in the comprehensive rules, and this card has an ability to negate that, we all know this part.

In a tournament that uses Singleton rules, such as Commander, the rule of four is modified (replaced) by the tournament rules for that event. The first ability of the card also negates the "rule of one", you can play as many as you want.

However, if your format doesn't allow m14 cards, humans, clerics, creatures, cards with cmc 1, black cards, or specifically bans this card (and likely also relentless rats) then the first ability doesn't negate this ruling, you can still play no more than zero.

In short:
EDH relentless rats has been a thing for a while now, and it's never going away.

Had some fun with these cards along with a late game Rise of the Dark Realms

Turn 1 - Swamp, Shadowborn Apostle
Turn 2 - Swamp, Shadowborn Apostle, Shadowborn Apostle
Turn 3 - Swamp, Shadowborn Apostle, Shadowborn Apostle, Shadowborn Apostle
Turn 4 - Mountain, Sac 6 Shadowborn Apostle: Get Griselbrand. Lightning Mauler, Soulbond to Griselbrand

Attack for 7. Gain 7, pay 7, draw 7. Repeat. :D

Any hope of hitting someone using this setup with Memoricide or Shimian Specter? Maybe a card with similar or "named card cannot be played" mechanics? I think it would result in massive lol's.

Get a Rune-Scarred Demon, use its ability to grab Immortal Servitude, then cast Immortal Servitude for 1 to get all your Apostles back. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Ditching six of these guys would be pretty rad with a Xathrid Necromancer and/or Rotlung Reanimator in play.

Liliana of the Dark Realms deck w/ a reprint of
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen would just be so great in standard.

Might be fun to try and combo with Lord of The Void and at that point as long as you have a way to protect him from any spells you can start using your opponents deck against them. Then throw in an elixir of immortality to go through and repeat the process for other demons. Sounds awesome to me.

I hear a train a'comin', and his name is Abhorrent Overlord in a mono-black deck + 12-18 of these ladies minimum.

Am I the only one who sees this coupling well with Rune-Scarred Demon and Battle of Wits?

Tutor Rune with Apostles, and then tutor Battle with Rune.

Game.

Cabal Archon with Athreos, God of Passage as the EDH General , Remembrance too

Nantuko shrine edh with hermit druid