"Shadowborne Apostle EDH: With my blood I summon thee..."

"I have a feeling...mas mahal pa ito sa 20 later..."

"Shadowborne Apostle EDH: With my blood I summon thee..."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

My first EDH deck was built around Relentless Rats. I enjoyed having Rats , I enjoyed watching them grow bigger and bigger as more and more of their rat brethren arrive on the battlefield. 3 mana was all it took to have one rat out and since a deck can have any number of Relentless Rats my opponents sort of guessed what would happen in a couple of turns if they don't have something like Surgical Extraction , Eradicate or Severe the Bloodlines in their respective decks(which they seldomly had). Needless to say my Relentless Rats and I enjoyed many casual EDH games.

"daga daga!"

Now there is a new card about to enter Standard in M14 that might carry the torch for all things that can have any number of copies in a given deck. It is the one black mana costing Human Cleric called Shadowborne Apostle. At first glance he was a 1/1 creature with a great special ability  , if you have 6 copies of it in play you may pay 1 black mana and search for a demon in your library and put it on the battlefield. One of the obvious choices would be the same card making its debut in M14 as well which is the Shadowborne Demon (destroying a non-demon when it comes into play is a great choice for spot removal) , it seems like there are lot of these Shadowborne brood milling about in M14 but we will just have to wait how powerful they can be when the whole gang is revealed.

"Imagine that...calling this guy out with the Apostle even satisfies his  requirements! Perfect"

In anticipation though an EDH deck that requires the sacrifice of 6 Shadowborne Apostles would greatly benefit from one Orzhov card called Immortal Servitude. For a mana cost of 4 you could actually return all of your fallen Human Clerics and pay an additional one mana to have another demon enter the battlefield.

I looked at this card and I said it may like be Relentless Rats but it does not give the stats that a turn 4 or 5 Rat  could give each other. It doesn't seem as aggressive , in fact the Shadowborne Apostle fits a more control and late game winning strategy. It was until I realized that it can be affected by the same things that effects the Relentless Rats that I saw it in a different light.  The Ripple Mechanic (just for starters) that the 5 colorless artifact Thrumming Stone can bring on the table affects these Humans.1 drop of them and you would be sure to empty most of your deck on the battlefield. It was a devastating effect for the rats , it will do the same here. 

Then you have enablers like the  Coat of Arms that  allows them to have the added bonuses as well. Assuming that you have  already cast 5 of these and you decide to plop in a 6th copy and play a Coat of Arms  then yes they would be 6/6 Human Clerics that you might actually enjoy attacking with rather than sacrificing. If you do the calculations they are actually stronger than 4 Relentless Rats in play ( the number of Rats you could play at Turn 6 if you did not miss a land drop). And since  they are pretty much easier to cast you could actually get your clerics stronger much faster than rats in no time.

Consider these dream scenarios with the Shadowborne Apostle:

 - A Thrumming Stone + Coat of Arms + 30 Shadowborne Apostles on the battlefield does seem disastrous for your opponent don't you think? After all they will be 30 +30/+30 creatures that would total 900 points of damage if left unopposed. That's like winning 22 EDH games worth of damage!!!

If we put in a Door of Destinies into the Mix it becomes even more insane...

"I still call it Door of Densities...it makes creatures so Dense..."

-  A Thrumming Stone + Door of Destinies + 30 Shadowborne Apostles - 

For the sake of simplicity let us just say that you cast your first Shadowborne Apostle on turn six and for each Cleric that comes into play a +1/+1  is added. It will be a whopping  30 +30/ +30 creatures that would total 900 points of damage if left unopposed on the next turn as well!

Adding an Eldrazi Monument is merely icing on the cake...I actually did math in this article! Only Magic could do that to me!

One other thing that I looked at is the creature type which is Cleric. Back in Onslaught where I first started there was a card named Profane Prayers. This card cared about the number of Clerics in play. The sorcery actually deals X damage to target creature or player and you gain X life based on the number of Clerics you have. 1 drops that tend to multiply with your mana curve? The card is a shoo in. 

Speaking of Clerics  I guess this would be a great time to have the good old Mikaues the Lunarch back in the fold. He gives +1/+1 counter to each of your creatures in due time. Adaptive Automaton can either be a Cleric or a Human or a Demon in this deck but my best bet will be that most of the time he will the the 2 former choices. 

Cavern of Souls will be big in deck especially since its going to be a deck chock full of Humans and Demons. Your best choice to have one of these creatures uncounterable. 

Speaking of Demons , one particular Innistrad Demon would be happy in this place and I am also dying to play him because he has not found a home since he won 3 straight games for me during my Dark Ascension pre-release. The Ravenous Demon could turn into the Archdemon of Greed quite fast in this EDH deck. Lots of humans to sacrifice for him to gobble up. Yum Yum.

Another Demon you might consider playing is the Mass Removal on a stick Reiver Demon , its Nekrataal like Mass Removal effect would be welcome especially if you are not facing Black or Artifact creatures. It would still kill a significant number of creatures so it is a sure addition to this deck. 

Scion of Darkness  , Withenger Unbound ,  Demon of Deathsgate and Rune-Scarred Demon are great additions to this deck. It is a very exciting development. One of the things that I would like to note is that there is no rule against Demon Flip cards being summoned directly unto the Battlefield...Meaning Withengar Unbound could come in with all his 13/13 Fattie Flying  , Intimidate  , trampling Goodness at instant speed..let us say the moment before your opponent dies you go ahead and sacrifice 6 of your Shadowborne Apostles and voila you have  26/26 (again with the math) Flying  , Intimidate  , trampling monster! 

"I love turning 26!"

I really have to lie down...All this damage calculating is tiring. Until next time.

Blessed are those who could  brew and play. So always do so.