Budget Magic: $76 Demon Stompy (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! This week, we're heading to our new Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard format to stomp our opponents with some Demons! Rot-Curse Rakshasa is an absurd aggro card, as a 5/5 for two with trample that eventually lets us get through an alpha strike by making our opponent unable to block thanks to its renew ability. And it also happens to be a Demon, making it one of the best ways to power up Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber! How good is Rot-Curse Rakshasa? Can Mono-Black Aggro work in Standard on just a $94 budget? Let's get to the video and find out!
Budget Magic: Demon Stompy
The Deck
Rot-Curse Rakshasa is a wild card. A two-mana 5/5 trample is very above the curve, even considering decay keeps it from blocking and only lets it attack once. And then, its renew ability—exiling from the graveyard to put decayed counters on other creatures—lets us one-shot our opponent after we build a board by making our opponent's creatures unable to block. It also happens to be a Demon, which makes it the perfect way to power up our card-advantage engine, Unholy Annex. As weird as it sounds, we sometimes intentionally choose not to attack with Rot-Curse Rakshasa (since we'll have to sacrifice it if we do) just so it sits out on the battlefield and allows us to drain our opponent each turn with Unholy Annex on our end step while also drawing extra cards. Our final Demons are 6/6 fliers, in the Ritual Chamber token and Archfiend of the Dross, which, along with supporting Unholy Annex, let us smash for huge chunks of damage in the air.
The rest of our deck is mostly about the curve. We're in a three-color Standard, which sometimes leads to opponents having clunky draws, and our all-Swamp mono-colored mana base and aggro curve are the perfect way to punish these draws. In the one-drop slot, we have Cult Conscript as a Savannah Lions that can come back from the graveyard and Evolved Sleeper as a backup source of card advantage.
Backing up Rot-Curse Rakshasa in the two-drop slot are Deep-Cavern Bat to pick apart our opponent's hand and Sinkhole Surveyor. While I'm not sure just how good the Bird actually is, it can snowball out of control if it sticks around for a few turns by making endure tokens or growing itself, which makes it interesting enough to test out, at least.
Finally, we have a few options in the three-drop slot. Unstoppable Slasher hits for an absurd amount of damage when it connects and is annoying to kill thanks to its persist-like ability. Preacher of the Schism is just a one-of, but it is a nice source of card advantage if we can stay ahead in life. Finally, Qarsi Revenant is another new card that intrigues me, as a souped-up 2025 Vampire Nighthawk. Along with being a solid threat on the battlefield, it can be renewed from the graveyard to send something else to the air and give it lifelink, which can close out games with Unstoppable Slasher or Rot-Curse Rakshasa.
Last but not least, we have a touch of removal in Cut Down and Go for the Throat, along with our super-simple, consistent, and cheap all-Swamp mana base.
Wrap-Up
Record-wise, we ended up 5-1 with the deck, which is super solid, although it is worth mentioning that we were playing at Gold thanks to the season reset. On the other hand, we did play against the three big decks in Standard—Mice, Self-Bounce, and Domain—and managed to beat them all, which is pretty impressive for any deck, let alone a budget deck.
Rot-Curse Rakshasa felt great in general. We did have a game against aggro where being unable to block was awkward. But we saw Rakshasa win throughout our matches by attacking, by not attacking to keep Unholy Annex active, and by renewing from the graveyard to make our team unblockable. While it looks like a big beater, and it is, it's also surprisingly flexible. As far as our other new cards in Sinkhole Surveyor and Qarsi Revenant, the ship is still out. While they did make some brief appearances, we didn't draw them all that often. My current impression is that Sinkhole Surveyor is probably going to get cut while Qarsi Revenant might stick around, although it's still too early to say for sure.
So, should you play Demon Stompy in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard? I think the answer is yes! The deck posted a solid record, and it's cheap to put together! If you like smashing for tons of damage or Demons, or are just looking for a solid budget deck for our new Standard format, give the deck a shot!
Non-Budget Demon Stompy
Honestly, there weren't a ton of cards that I wanted to play in the deck but couldn't because of the budget, although a couple of cards are worth mentioning as upgrades. One is Sheoldred, which is just a super-strong black card. While I'm not sure I'd play any in the main deck, a copy or two in the sideboard is probably worthwhile. On the other hand, I really wanted to play a couple of Gix, Yawgmoth Praetors in the main but ended up cutting the three-drop because it's almost $10 a copy. But it does seem like a strong card-advantage engine that works well with our evasive threats.
Ultra-Budget Demon Stompy
This one is mostly for Magic Arena, where we managed to get the total number of rares and mythics down to 15. The biggest problem with making an ultra-budget build of Demon Stompy is that all of our Demons are rares. While we could cut them and play a generic mono-black aggro deck, it would basically be an entirely different deck without Rot-Curse Rakshasa, Archfiend of the Dross and Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber. As such, we mostly make changes around the edges, cutting some of the lesser rares like Evolved Sleeper and Sinkhole Surveyor for cards like Thought-Stalker Warlock and Forsaken Miner. The deck should play more or less the same but is probably slightly less powerful due to the downgrades.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter or Bluesky @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
