MOM's Daily Deck Tech: Dog of Dementia

This April is the month of March! We take a quick look at a deck featuring the latest additions from March of the Machine every workday throughout the rest of April. Combining an old Altar and an Elder Giant, Modern players now get to mill their whole library—and win—as early as turn three!

Here's your new three-step program for profit. This is what you do on the first, second, and third turn with an ideal draw:

  1. Cast or (or cast and get lucky).
  2. Cast .
  3. Sacrifice Blood token to discard . Cast to put the 6/6 onto the battlefield. Put its triggered ability onto the stack, respond by sacrificing it to the Altar, mill yourself for six cards, and then exile five of them to bring the Elder Giant Dog back. Repeat enough times to deplete all of your library and use one last trigger to reanimate for the win.

Outside of exile, it realistically doesn't matter where you have how many cards once you begin sacrificing Kroxa and Kunoros. You're certain to end up with an empty library and enough cards in your graveyard to return the Oracle. This means creature removal will never stop the kill by reducing your devotion, and even won't ever mess with Kroxa and Kunoros, as you want to sacrifice before passing priority anyway.

Getting the Dog into and out of the yard is comparatively easy. Goryo's Vengeance is the best, not just because it's the cheapest option but also because it enables the lethal strike at instant speed. Nonetheless makes for a decent substitute. For reliable access to the Altar you can likewise enlist the aid of both and . You already put artifacts into play with Epicure, Fountain, and , so usually Emry should be cheap and Engineer active.

Looking to reanimate a creature and an artifact creates cross-synergies beyond the mere ability of self-mill hitting either. If you cannot make Emry stick around, a spare might help. When you fail to find one of the Goryos, Engineer can go grab .

The following list attempts to speedrun the combo while maintaining decent consistency, albeit at little regard for hate. Other approaches are conceivable. The combo could just as well show up as a B plot in some Rakdos Midrange/Sacrifice build alongside the for example.

Dog of Dementia, Modern
Main Deck
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  •  
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 2
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.