Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #666: Demons

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

This podcast is about the history of the Demon creature type.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I dropped my son off at camp. Okay guys, today is all about demons. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to start at the very beginning of the game and walk through all the demons and we'll get as far as I can through the history of demons until I get to work. That's the plan. So we're going to start from the very first demon. Along the way, there's some stories about individual demons and some stories about demons as a whole that I will tell.

Okay, so we go back to Alpha, to the very beginning. So there are actually two demons. Richard made two demons in the very first magic set. So first was demonic hordes. Three black, black, black. So six men in total, three of which were black. It's a 5-5

demon. And this was creature, I mean, back in the day it was summon, but yes, this was a demon. So Alpha did have two creatures that did say demon on them. I think they both said demon. Did Lord of the Pit say Lord of the Pit? I think that did say demon on them. I think they both said demon. Did Lord of the Pit say Lord of the Pit?

I think they both said demon on them. So anyway, demonic hordes was a 5-5 demon. Tap, destroy target land. And then at the beginning of your upkeep, unless you pay black, black, black, tap demonic hordes and sacrifice a land of the opponent's choice. So from the very beginning, Richard set down what demons were all about. Demons were about giving you great power, but at great danger, at great cost.

And so the idea was that you could destroy a land every turn, but there was upkeep to be paid. And if you didn't pay the upkeep, bad things would happen. The demon would start destroying your stuff. So you had to feed the demon. Then the other demon from Alpha was Lord of the Pit. Four black, black, black. So seven mana total, three of which is black. It was a 7-7 Demon. Flying Trample.

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature other than Lord of the Pit. If you can't, Lord of the Pit deals seven damage to you. So the idea is, if you don't feed the Lord of the Pit, the Lord of the Pit will feed on you. So you need to keep feeding it. And the idea was... So this... The Lord of the Pit was a very popular early card, which is interesting in that most cards with a lot of upkeep weren't very popular. I think the reason Lord of the Pit, like, the reason it got made an exception, I think, is that, you know, there was, it was so flavorful, you know, the idea that you have to feed this demon that people just enjoy. And, you know, it was a 7-mana 7-7

flying trampler, which in modern days, nothing that special. But back in the day, there weren't a lot of giant flying tramplers. That was a pretty rare thing. In fact, in Alpha, the biggest creature in Alpha was Force of Nature, which was an 8-8. And so this was a 7-7. This was the biggest creature other than the Force of Nature. So it was a pretty big creature, and it flew, and it trampled, and all you had to do, all you had to do was pay a little, pay a creature a return. So, once again, so Demonic Hordes and

Lord of the Pit started and really put a stamp on the demon, on the demon creature type, which was demons can give you great power, but at great cost. And not necessarily mana cost, but, you know, there was upkeep to be paid or there's, you had a, it was something that you sort of committed to. And if somehow you fell down along the way, bad things would happen to you. For example, the demonic hordes, if you somehow couldn't pay it, he started eating your land, making it harder to pay it in the future. And same with Lord of the Pit, if you ran out of creatures, he just started munching

on you, so you really had to sort of be conscious of paying attention to these. Okay, the next demon shows up in Antiquities, Yawgmoth Demon. really had to sort of be conscious of paying attention to these. Okay. The next demon shows up in Antiquities. Yawgmoth Demon. So Yawgmoth Demon costs four black blacks, so six total. Two, which is black. Six, six demon. It's got flying.

It's got first strike. Black had a lot more first strike back in the day than it currently has. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice an artifact. If you don't, tap Yawgmoth Demon and it deals two damage to you. So the idea is, this was a riff obviously in Lord of the Pit, except Antiquities was the artifact set. So instead of having to feed it creatures,

you had to feed it artifacts. It liked to eat artifacts. And the way this one worked is, Lord of the Pit just did damage to you if you didn't feed it. Yawgmoth Demon, now it doesn't do damage to you. Less damage, but it taps it, meaning you can't attack with it. Lord of the Pit, I had to take the damage if I didn't feed it, but I could still attack with it.

This, like, nope. The demon's like, you don't feed me, I don't work for you, I'll damage you some, and then I'm not going to let you use me. So, you needed to give it a steady diet of artifacts. I'm not going to let you use me. So you needed to give it a steady diet of artifacts. And anyway, once again, a lot of early magic is taking cards people liked and then riffing off them. Oh, people like Lord of the Pit? We're doing an artifact set?

How about an artifact Lord of the Pit? Okay, next. Mole Demon. Five black black from Legends. So originally it was creature type Mole Demon. There was a lot of things just being their own name in their creature type. But now it's a Fungus Demon.

So it's a 6-6 creature, 5 black black so 7 mana total, 2 which is black. When Mole Demon enters the battlefield sacrifice it unless you sacrifice 2 swamps. So this was something that just had a cost up front. Like, oh, it's a seven mana six six, which I guess at the time was good?

I don't know. There's a lot of cards in Legends that are just... even in the time weren't particularly good. Like, this is one of the things where, look, seven mana for six six ain't that great, and I have to sacrifice two swamps? Eh, not so good. Okay, next. Also in Legends,

the Wretched. The Wretched, by next. Also in Legends, the Wretched. The Wretched, by the way, was creature type the Wretched. It has now been retrofitted to be Demon. I mean, if you look at it, it looks like a Demon, but it was technically the Wretched. So, three black, black, five mana total, two witches black. It's a 2-5 Demon. At end of combat, gain control of all creatures blocking the wretched for as long as you control the wretched. Now this was a pretty popular card back in the day because the idea of this card was, it's a 2-5.

It doesn't tend to kill things, unless they're very small, but anything that gets in a fight with it, it steals. Now once again, we're talking early days. The color pie was still sort of finding its footing. Stealing, while it was more in blue than in black. This is black doing some stealing. Black is still tertiary in stealing behind blue and red. But it's not something we did very often.

Okay, also in Legends. And note, Mold Demon was actually Demon. But Wretched was the Wretched. Lady Orca was just Legend, because back then, Legendary creatures, instead of Legendary being a super type for creatures, it was a creature type. And the creature type Legend carried with it all the rules baggage. Back in the day, there were a few. So Legend and Wall were the two creature types that carried with them rules support.

A Wall meant you couldn't attack. Like, we didn't have Defender yet back in the day. Wall just sort of had Defender built in. So if you had turned something into a Wall, it now couldn't attack. And Legend carried the legendary rule for creatures at the time. When Legends first came out, you could only have one copy of a Legend or Legendary Permanent, or Legendary, well, I guess they were all Permanents,

in your deck. You could only have one copy in your deck. It's kind of restricted. That rule went away. And then the other rule of the time was once one of them was out, once one was on the battlefield, nobody else could cast it.

So whoever the first person to cast, let's say Lady Orca was, if somebody else had Lady Orca in their hand. Okay, so Lady Orca we can show you how bad gold cards were when they started. Five black, red. So seven men in total. One which is black, one which is red. And she's a legendary

creature. She's now a demon. Back in the day, you only had one creature type and legend. You had to be a legend if you were legendary and you were a creature. So she didn't have one. She is technically the first red demon, or at least not just mono black demon. She's a black red demon.

But I will also stress that at the time, she was retroactively made a demon. But the card that ties that record is Solkenar the Swamp King. So two blue, black, red. Once again, creature type of legend, creature legend at the time, not a legend or creature demon. Five, five. Swamp Walk.

When a player casts a black spell, you gain one life. And the idea is not just when you cast a black spell, when anybody casts a black spell. Now, Lady Orca, a 7 mana 7-4, nothing special. I think she was uncommon. But that a 7 mana 7-4 is, even in its day, at its time, was nothing to speak of. Most of the gold cards

in Legends were a bit over-costed. They almost were acted as if gold was easier to cast rather than harder to cast. We since obviously understand that because gold is trickier to cast, we can give you a little more for your mana spend than you do. Solkenar, on the other side,

was a pretty popular card. 5 mana for 5-5 with Swamp Walk and Life Gain. I mean, it was much beloved in the time. And for rates of creatures in Legends, at that time in Magic, it was pretty good. So, Solkenar was one of the better gold cards. It was a rare card where Lady Orca was an uncommon.

Almost none of the uncommons were very good. Okay, next. Infernal Denizen. So it costs seven and a black, eight mana total. And Infernal Denizen, I think it's from Ice Age. It's a... It originally was creature type Infernal Denizen.

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice two swamps. If you can't, tap Infernal Denizen. An opponent may gain control of a creature you control of their choice for as long as Infernal Denizen remains on the battlefield. So, by the way, it's a 5-7 creature. So it's an 8-mana 5-7. Oh, I'm sorry. Infernal Denizen...

Is it Legends? No, it's not. It can't be Legends. So it must be Ice Age. Anyway, it also has the ability to tap gain control of target creature for as long as Infernal Denizen remains on the battlefield. So once again, this is one of those,

okay, it costs eight mana, it's a 5-7, I can keep stealing things every turn for no mana, but the upkeep is I have to sacrifice two swamps. That's not an upkeep I can keep going forever. So, for example, in a mono-black deck, assuming I cast this when I have eight swamps, that means for four turns I can steal things. And then after that,

it's going to start tapping my Infernal Denizen and they're going to start stealing back things, probably things I stole. But maybe if I have other powerful things, steal those. But anyway, it's a good example of it's splashy and could do powerful things but man it comes at quite the upkeep cost

it's something that you really have to spend and think about as you can see by the way as I go through these early demons Lord of the Pit was kind of popular Sulcanar was kind of popular but a lot of these cards I'm saying were not particularly popular it took us a little while to find the sweet spot of

trying to find demons that were both felt demon-y but were exciting and good cards. These early demons were splashy in some way but the drawback was so severe that it was just hard to play them. Okay, next. Minion of Leshrac from Ice Age. Four black, black, black. It is now a demon minion, but at the time it was printed, it was just a demon.

Five, five. Protection from black. At the beginning of your upkeep, Minion of Leshrac deals five damage to you unless you sacrifice a creature other than Minion of Leshrac. If Minion of Leshrac deals damage to you this way, tap it. And then tap, destroy target creature or land so the idea is for 7 mana I get a 5-5 that every turn can tap and destroy a land or a creature

that's pretty powerful Ion's got protection from black the problem is that if you do not sacrifice a creature to it he deals damage to you and taps so much like Lord of the... This was basically Ice Age's

Lord of the Pit. It's a little better than Lord of the Pit. Lord of the Pit was a 7-7 Flying Trampler. I guess this doesn't fly. But once again, you're tapping it and trying to destroy things, so you're not really attacking with it all that much. Okay, also from Ice Age, Minion of

Tevishthoth. So, 4 black, black, black. So, Minion of Tevishthat. So four black, black, black. So seven mana, three which is black. For four, four, now it's a demon minion at a time it was printed with just a demon. At the beginning of your upkeep, Minion of Tevishthat deals two damage to you unless you pay black, black. And then tap, target creature gets plus three, minus two until end of turn.

So this is another demon. Plus three, minus two means I either can kill small things on my opponents, or I can make bigger things of mine more powerful, but at the risk of weakening them. But this is sort of like Demonic Horde. There's just a cost to be paid

every turn. And if you don't pay the cost, then he damages you. So you have to pay the cost. Okay. Next, we get to Mirage. So, I think Ice Age... I think Ice Age might

be where we have to talk about the demon part of our story. Mirage? Yes. Okay. So, what happened as of somewhere after Ice Age, wizards got worried about the demon creature type just because there was a lot of, I don't know,

a lot of, at the time, just pushback and stuff of is stuff appropriate for kids or whatever. And so for a while, Wizards made the conscious decision instead of having things be creature-type demon, I think we changed to the creature-type beast. And so, or horror.

So we, for a while, even though we had demons, and I'll talk about a couple of them, for a while, A, we pulled way back. We didn't even have a lot of cards that could be demons. And the few times we had cards that could be demons, they were beasts or whores. We sort of said, well, you know, we didn't call them demons. So now we're getting to the period of time where we don't have demons.

Also, in Unglued, by the way, it is not technically a demon, but in Unglued, there's a, it is not technically a demon, but in Unglued, there's a card called Infernal Spawn of Evil that on the type line says demon, and then it is crossed off, and beast is written. And that was us making a joke about how we weren't doing demons anymore.

Okay, so the next card is Spirit of the Night. Six, black, black, black. So it is a nine mana card, three of which is black. It's a legendary creature. It is now a demon spirit, but at the time, the creature type legend was still legend.

So it was creature type legend. That's how we got around. We didn't have to say it was a demon or even just legends didn't have creature types. So it has flying, trample, Haste, and Protection from Black. And it is a... It is... Hold on a second. It was a pretty big creature.

Hold on one second. Safety first. Okay. It was a 6-5 creature. And it had First Strike as long as it's attacking. So it had all those abilities. It had flying, it had trample, it had haste, it had protection from black. It had first strike when attacking. Now notice, not all those buildings, like, haste is not something that at the time Black did all that often. Flying was, trample was on big things.

Protection from Black, we gave to Black occasionally. This is back in the era where Black did more first strikes than it does now. Anyway, the special thing about this, which is actually not on the card itself, was there were three creatures in the set that were all common. And if you got all three creatures out at once, you could sacrifice them to search your deck for Spirit of the Night and bring it out. By the way, Spirit of the Night was originally called Spirit of the Night Stalker, but the name did not fit on the type line. So, oh, it's Spirit of the Night Stalker. Ah, doesn't fit. Spirit of the

Night. How about Night? So it got shortened. Okay, next, Pit Spawn. This is an exodus. Four black, black, black. You notice there's a lot of black in demons because they're so black. They're so demon-y. So seven mana total, three which is black. Six, four.

It is now a demon by the time it was imprinted. It was a beast. This is during our beast period. It had first reich. At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice pitspawn unless you pay black black.

Whenever pitspawn deals damage to a creature, exile that creature. So it had first reich, and whenever it damaged something, it exiled it. So it tended to sort of eviscerate things

as it attacked. But it exiled it. So it tended to sort of eviscerate things as it attacked. But it required an upkeep. Once again, it's funny looking back. First Strike was on knights and things, and I guess it was on a bunch of demons. It was something that black quickly, like, it now is very infrequently in black. It's like tertiary in black, and we don't use it very often.

But it's funny as I'm going through demons, how often it is showing up on demons. First rate showing up on demons. Okay, next. Grinning demon onslaught. So two black black for a 6-6 demon. So demons are back. As of onslaught, demons returned.

And we decided again. So what happened there was we had got uber cautious. We decided not to do demon. We didn't want to sort of stir up any trouble. And then at some point, I think there's like shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on

and we're like, look, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a popular show and they have demons. There are demons on their show. It is not, you know, and, you know, the people who were playing magic were the same age people were watching Buffy.

You know, I mean, the younger end of it. But, you know, and we finally said, you know, the people who were playing Magic were the same age people were watching Buffy. You know, I mean, the younger end of it. But, you know, and we finally said, you know what? Pop culture is using demons. This is crazy. We're going to bring demons back. So we brought demons back. And so I believe Exodus, I think Pitspawn, not Pitspawn, sorry, Grinning Demon in Onslaught, sorry, in Onslaught is the first, is the return of the demon creature type.

So Grinning Demon is four mana, so two black black, two black of the four. It's a 6-6 demon. At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose two life. And then it had morph. And for two black black, you could turn it face up. So the idea was, it's a morph creature. I can play it face down as a 2-2 creature. And then whenever I want, I can spend two black black, and I can turn it into a 6-6.

The problem is, when it's a 6-6, there's a life loss that comes with it. So there's an upkeep that comes with the demon. Now, 6-6 is a lot of creature. You know, if I believe, for example, that I can do a lot of damage with this thing, hey, I want to morph it. I want to make it into my demon. But once I make it a demon, once I'm there, I'm now committed to paying the two life return. And there have been games, I've played games with Grinning Demon where you were winning and then the board stalled and then Grinning Demon made

you lose. So this is a good example of a little bit better balanced demon. The kind of demon that you would might want to play in Constructed, but also the kind of demon that could come back and bite you from time to time. So next we get to legions, Havoc Demon. Havoc Demon's five black black. So seven mana total, two of which is black. It's a five five demon. It's got flying.

When Havoc Demon dies, all creatures get minus five, minus five, and will end up in turn. So legions was a set, all creatures, so it was very creature-centric. Obviously, legions was drafted with a lot of fly, so in Limited there were some non-creatures. But a lot more creatures than normal, because all of Legions was creatures. So this is interesting. This is one of the first demons without really an upkeep of any kind, and without really a drawback of any kind. Like, it's a 5-5 flyer.

Now, you're paying for it. It's 7 mana for a 5-5 flyer. But it just has a good effect when he dies. You don't want him to die. Your opponent doesn't want him to die. Now, it can come back to bite you in the sense that his minus 5, minus 5 isn't just to your opponent's creatures. So when I put this out, I guess the drawback is it could kill my creature. That's a legitimate drawback.

That's fair. That's a legitimate drawback. Okay, that's fair. That's a legitimate drawback that I get this powerful creature, but it could come at the cost of me losing my creatures. So I guess that is a drawback. Okay, next is Reaver Demon. Four. Black. Black.

Black. Black. So that's eight mana total, four of which is black. It's from Mirrodin. It is a 6-6 flying demon. When Reaver Demon enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand, destroy all non-artifact, non-black creatures

that can't be regenerated. Okay, this is the all-upside demon. Now, it does have a rider that says you have to cast it from your hand. That is so this wasn't a good reanimation target. So the idea is it basically tears everything, so it destroys all non-artifact,

non-black creatures. But it has to be cast from your hand so that you can't reanimate this or do other shenanigans. You have to actually cast this thing to make it happen. But I will note that, well, okay, once again, I guess it destroys everything. I guess note that well, okay, once again I guess he destroys everything I guess, I mean it's not completely all upside in that you might have sacrificed some of your creatures to play this because it destroyed all the creatures. Now, you probably

won't do that unless it's to your advantage to do that so this downside, okay, once again I keep saying it's the all upside, it's not all upside but it's not, it's the least amount of downside yet that we've made for Demon at that point. Okay, now we get to the set that has Demons. Up until this point, no set had more...

I guess Ice Age was the most at this point. And even then... Well, Legends retroactively had a bunch of Demons, but very few at the time. And Ice Age had a bunch of Demons. but very few at the time. And Ice Age had a bunch of demons. But the king of demons, the set that had,

I think the most demons, or a lot of demons, is Champions of Kamigawa. So first up is Gut Wrencher Oni. Three black, black. So five mana total. Two of which is black. For five, four demon spirit. It's got trample.

In the beginning of your upkeep, discard a card if you don't control an Ogre. So the thing we did in Champions of Kamigawa is we made a connection between Ogres and the Oni, which were the Demons. They were Demon Spirits. And this is a good example where, you know, if you want to have a 5-mana 5-4 Tr you know, if you want to have a 5 mana 5-4 trampler, and you don't have an...

If you don't... Sorry. If you don't have an ogre, it's going to make you discard a card every turn. Now, given if your hand's empty, okay, you can't discard a card. There are times you will play this without the ogre, but, man, you really want the ogre.

It's just better with an ogre. Okay, then there's Kuru Pitlord. Six black, black, black. So nine mana total, three witches black. A nine, nine demon spirit, legendary demon spirit. At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Kiro unless you pay black, black, black, black. So you've got to pay four black mana.

And then pay one life, target creature gets minus one, minus one until end of turn. So this one's pretty cool. It requires an upkeep, but it allows you to turn life into sort of creature shrinking. Or actually, I mean, when I say shrinking, I don't mean just the power, but power and toughness. So you can kill things with it.

Next, Painwrecker Oni. Three black black, champs of Kamigawa. I'm sorry, from champs of Kamigawa. It is a 5-4 Demon Spirit. It's got Fear, which means it can't be blacklisted by artifact creatures and black creatures. At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature if you don't control an ogre. So this is another one of the Oni that wants the ogres. And so, in this case, it's sort of a Lord of the Pit.

But it's a Lord of the Pit that if you have an ogre, you don't need to sacrifice the creature. So it's a Lord of the Pit with a buyout by having an ogre. Okay, next. Saison, Perverter of Truth. Three black blacks. So five mana total. So five mana, two bushes black. Six, five legendary demon spirit.

At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player loses two life and draws two cards. Okay, so this is interesting in two ways. One is it is doing something that in the beginning is positive. Drawing cards is good and paying life to draw cards is usually acceptable in black, but it doesn't stop. It's not like I start getting low in life

and go, okay, I'm full. No, no, no. You're going to keep losing the life. Now, the interesting thing is now it does it to you, it does it to every player. So this is the kind of thing where maybe if you build your deck to deal with it, you can deal with the fact that, you know, you're going to be losing life and make sure you have things to do with the extra cards because you could have to discard at some point if you have too many cards. But anyway, this is a fun demon. I like also a demon that it kind of makes everybody sort of play this game, which is kind of cool.

Next, Shimatsu the Blood-Soaked. Three and a red for, well, it's a 0-0 legendary demon spirit, but you'll see. As Shimatsu the Blood-Soaked enters the battlefield, sacrifice any number of permanents, and enters the battlefield with that many plus one, plus one counters on it. So the idea is you can sacrifice whatever you want, and then it gets that big, but you have to sacrifice it.

Now note, this is the first mono-red demon, and the first, I think this is the first non-black demon that says demon in its creature type line at the time it was printed, I believe. And it's clearly the first mono-red that says demon on its type line. But the idea here is, and this definitely has a red sensibility to it because it's sort of upfront, which is, okay, what reckless thing are you going to do to make this demon?

And in short term, you get a giant demon. Hope nothing ever happens to that giant demon. But that feels very much. Okay, next. Infernal spawn of infernal spawn of evil. Eight black blacks, so ten mana total. Two of which is black. This is from Unhinged.

It's an 8-8. So Infernal Spawn of Evil was a 7-7. So this is an 8-8. It's Flying First Strike Trample. And I think the Infernal Spawn of Evil was Flying and First Strike, I believe. So Trample got added. So the idea is Infernal Spawn of Evil was one creature. And now Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil

is that same creature but now with a kid. With a baby demon. And creature type by the way, so what we did on Infernal Spawn of Evil is it said demon, we crossed it off and wrote beast. So for Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil, we wrote beast child, crossed off beast

and wrote in demon. So technically this is a demon, and technically Infernal Spawn of Evil is a beast, because that's the jokes we were playing with at the time. So Infernal Spawn of Evil technically is not a demon, although demon-like, where Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil is. So once each turn, while you're searching your library,

you may pay one and a black, reveal Infernal Spawn of Evil from your library, and say, I'm coming too. If you do, Infernal Spawn of Evil from your library and say, I'm coming too. If you do, Infernal Spawn of Evil deals two damage to a player of your choice. So Infernal Spawn of Evil, you can reveal it from your hand. And I think you paid a little bit of mana. And then you made your opponent lose life. So this is doing the same thing.

But instead of being from your hand, it's when you search for library. So it's going back a little farther. So Infernal Spawn of Evil was that you would reveal and say, I'm coming, and they'd be so so scared that at some point it was coming, they would lose life with the flavor. And so now you have the Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil, that it's bigger than after. It's, you know, instead of a 7-7, it's

an 8-8. Instead of flying in First Strike, it's flying First Strike and Trample. And it also is very scary. So this time when you're disillusioning your library, like this isn't even

in your hand yet, but it's coming and it's scary. Okay. I've now got to wizards. I said I would be doing this till I got to wizards. How are we doing on time?

Let's see. What do I got left? I got a whole bunch. There's a whole bunch more of Kamigawa demons so maybe we'll wrap up here so anyway I just want to sort of walk through like demons have been demons are interesting designs

in that they really come with this challenge to the designer which is you want to make something that is exciting-looking and powerful-looking and makes the player feel like they can do amazing things, but it comes at a cost. And, you know, demons are all about sort of...

I mean, a good demon design is you want to play it, it's exciting, early on it helps you, but there's just games where maybe it doesn't work to your advantage. And what ends up being the death of you is your own demon. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast. I hope it was very demonic.

But anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.