Killing Your Darlings? - The Case for Archfiend of the Dross
The landscape of Standard seems like it's going to shift mightily in the next two weeks. Wilds of Eldraine is bringing a Mary Poppins Bag of goodies to experiment, brew, and gallavant off into the sunset with. But with all the hype around such things as the Virtues, Adventures, and Beseech the Mirror, I'd like to have a discussion today about a card that, while written off as jank material for jank combos, could be a role-player in the new format (and the lame-duck one we've got for the next week or so): Archfiend of the Dross. Why was it written off? Well, it's very simple. It's a 4 mana mono-black bomb that puts the opponent on a clock and generally finishes games. Mono-Black has already had something like that for a long time, and I almost don't have to actually name it: Sheoldred.
Preface: By no means am I suggesting over the course of this discussion that a) Archfiend is strictly better card than Sheoldred, b) you should always play Archfiend over Sheoldred, and c) Sheoldred isn't good. What I am going to discuss is the pros and cons of each, the possible situations that each excel in, and what a meta or deck profile might look like where each would be the ideal choice.
Our contenders: (I'll include stats for those who may not know the cards and don't want to look them up):
Archfiend of the Dross
2BB
Creature - Phyrexian Demon
6/6
Flying
Archfiend of the Dross enters the battlefield with four oil counters on it
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove an oil counter from Archfiend of the Dross. Then if it has no oil counters on it, you lose the game.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, its controller loses 2 life.
Wow, that's a beefy boy. 4 mana 6/6 flyers in black have been historically very strong, and this one's no slouch. But what about our other party?
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
2BB
Legendary Creature - Phyrexian Praetor
4/5
Deathtouch
Whenever your opponent draws a card, they lose 2 life.
Whenever you draw a card, you gain 2 life.
Deceptively simple, Sheoldred has proved itself over and over again as the premier black threat in multiple formats, snatching games from the jaws of defeat over and over again (sometimes in the Pro Tour feature match!) You either love or you hate this card--there is no in between. So lets start our discussion with the pros and cons of Sheoldred.
Sheoldred
Pros:
Inevitability - Pinging your opponent for 2 provided a solid clock, especially coupled with the fact that Sheoldred can still attack and add to the damage. In board stalls, Sheoldred can eat away at your opponents life while also padding yours, incentivizing your opponent to try and get aggressive when they maybe can't afford to.
Stats - Sheoldred is BIG, especially the 5 toughness. That's above rate for a four drop and means Sheoldred can go toe to toe with creatures at her mana level and even beyond.
Deathtouch - Don't write off this ability. Trying to kill Sheoldred in combat means they have to go much bigger than her, but this ability means no matter what, your Sheoldred is going to trade one-for-one with something, and that's a solid guarantee.
Lifegain - Something black sorely needs, Sheoldred rewards you for something you wanted to be doing anyway by padding your life total and giving those cards you draw more time to become relevant. There's a reason mono-red hasn't been able to crack into top tier, and that's mainly down to Sheoldred.
Flexibility - Board stalled? Sheoldred's good. Only creature on the board? Sheoldred's good. On-curve? Fantastic. Late-game grind? Fantastic. I would argue Sheoldred's main appeal is that she's good in basically every scenario, from dropping her on-curve to slamming her in a topdeck war.
Cons:
Legendary - This can be a drawback. Bricking on multiple Sheoldreds can often be a death sentence if it disrupts your curve or your opponent can play around a single on. With no appropriate follow-up, sometimes multiple Sheoldreds can be the direct reason you lose a game.
Time - Sheoldred's clock is excellent, but it's slow. If your opponent has other ways of getting card advantage without drawing extra cards, or you're in a board stall, it's only going be to 2 damage a turn, which can give your opponent time to wiggle out of it. Similarly with lifegain, Sheoldred doesn't immediately gain you life, so dropping her at low life still leaves you vulnerable to a burn spell.
Easily blocked - Shelly is big, but any random 0/1 goat can block her. Board stalls can leave Shelly stranded, bringing us back to Con #2.
But what about Archfiend?
Archfiend
Pros:
HUGE - 6/6 is an absurd statline for four mana. Nahiri's Warcrafting doesn't kill it, unlike some other 5 toughness black creatures we know and love (and hate). It can block incredibly effectively--there aren't actually that many other big creatures in standard right now except for the ramp decks.
Aggressive clock - Not only the power but the lifeloss ability makes Archfiends clock incredibly fast if left unanswered. On his own, he can get three attacks in before the oil counters are gone, and thats 18 damage on its own. If the opponent has taken ANY more chip damage (say, from a Graveyard Trespasser or Mishra's Foundry or even Archfiends own ability), they're dead. Poof. Done. The numbers add up quite well for Archfiend.
Evasive - Flying is a huge deal in this format. The board can get gummy real quick in these midrange fights (especially with Sheoldreds running around) and flying over it means your clock isn't interrupted. There are very few other flying threats out there to block this, and blocking it doesn't even fully protect them, leading us to our next point...
The Life Loss - This ability warps the battlefield around it. Chump blocking your smaller creatures like Underdog or Trespasser no longer seems as appealing--they're going to lose almost as much life with Archfiend's trigger than if they didn't block at all, which means you've given everything else a form of evasion too! The ability also turns all your removal into burn spells. Cut Down burns for 2, Gix's Command burns for an ABSURD amount in the right matchups (and buffs the Archfiend to boot!) And heaven forbid you get two of these out. That functionally gives your team unblockable, since no ones going to take four to block when they could just let 3 through. Either way, they're usually dead. There's been a single time I've gotten three Archfiends on the field at once, and at that point a SINGLE Go for the Throat wins the game. Which once again leads us to...
Multiplicity - Now, it should be said that you can brick on these too if it disrupts your curve, but if you manage to curve out into multiple Archfiends the game is going to be over very quickly for your opponent. Blocking is not a good option, but neither is not blocking. Multiple 6/6 flyers coming at your face? Ridiculous.
Cons:
Losing the Game - While this isn't quite as bad of a drawback as you think, this is a real cost to playing Archfiend. If somehow you're up against an opponent with ways of stalling out your Archfiend, or you have to keep him back on defense, those oil counters will be the death of you. That being said, I've played dozens of matches with Archfiend both on Arena and in paper over the past couple months, and I have never lost directly to this trigger. The worst thing it's done is tunneled me into being aggressive, where a little luck from the opponent means I lost the race.
No inherent lifegain - While being a better stone wall, Archfiend doesn't help if you're up against burn. Couple that with the fact that Archfiend incentivizes you to be aggressive and it becomes difficult to play defense when you're not the beatdown.
Lifeloss != Trample - While Archfiend is big and flying, if they CAN block him, you're no longer doing enough damage to race your own oil counters. That makes Archfiend better on an empty board or a board where you're winning, so dropping one into an opponent's established board might not have a lot of impact.
There's our pros and cons for each card in a vacuum. Now let's talk about how they shape up against each other.
Let's start with some quick numbers. At minimum, unanswered and with no attacks, Sheoldred does 2 damage a turn while Archfiend does 0. However, if you include attacks (assuming no blocks), Sheoldred and Archfiend actually do the same amount of guaranteed damage a turn--Archfiend gets 6 for attacking, Sheoldred gets 4 from attacking and 2 from the trigger. From there, they both can get extra damage from the abilities depending on the context. If you've got a grip full of removal spells, Archfiend will end up doing more damage, but if the opponent is trying to dig, Sheoldred will do more damage. The only significant difference in their clock is Archfiend's evasiveness--given all situations, Archfiend is going to connect more than Sheoldred will. In terms of how efficient the clock is, I'll say Archfiend has a slight edge.
Both Sheoldred and Archfiend are going to be lightning rods for removal, and all the removal spells that kill Sheoldred kill Archfiend--Go for the Throat, Ossification, Liliana -2, Sheoldred's Edict, etc. The only meaningful spell that doesn't kill Archfiend but kills Sheoldred is Nahiri's Warcrafting, which is a point in Archfiend's favor. In terms of blocking and living, Archfiend gets the nod for being just slightly bigger. However, Sheoldred has a subtle feature of punishing your opponent for digging for a removal spell while Archfiend just sits waiting to have its throat cut.
This is the area where Sheoldred is going to shine the most. Innate, repeatable lifegain that also rewards you for what you want to do anyway is a huge swing in Sheoldred's favor. I mentioned that Archfiend doesn't die to Nahiri's Warcrafting, but that doesn't matter much when Archfiend incentivizes you to attack anyway and not block, removing its defensive capability anyway. There's no question at all, Sheoldred is leaps and bounds ahead of Archfiend when it comes defense.
Both of these creatures reward you for doing something you already wanted to do. Sheoldred rewards you for drawing cards, while Archfiend rewards you for casting removal spells and killing your opponent's creatures. Which one might be better? It really depends on the matchup, and what other cards you're playing. If you've got a Sheoldred that lives in a control matchup, that lifegain synergy is both more pronounced (you want to be drawing more cards) and less relevant (the life total doesn't matter quite as much. Archfiend's life loss is going to be strong in a control match, but also harder to pull off due to their lack of creatures. In a midrange fight, both are going to have benefits. Sheoldred exacerbates the life total difference, simultaneously making it easier to kill your opponent and keep them from killing you. For Archfiend, it'll tighten the screws quickly by providing an incredibly efficient clock, as well as reward you for casting your removal spells. Both have synergies in different places. The main difference in card synergy I should note is the curve of Archfiend -> Gix's Command. Buffing the Archfiend and killing some of your opponent's stuff is an enormous swing. So in the end, I think it can be said Sheoldred has more consistent synergy but Archfiend has bigger swings.
While the answer is of course "it depends", I think there are a few notable instances where Archfiend of the Dross is a solid contender for the four drop slot.
When you need as efficient a clock as possible.
When board stalls seem likely
When you can leverage powerful spells like Gix's Command
When raw stats are more important than Deathtouch
When (in paper) you can't afford 70$ a pop or (in Arena) you can't afford the wildcards
I can certainly see a world where enough of these situations collide to produce a time for the Dross to shine. As we head into Wilds of Eldraine standard beyond, I invite you to experiment, to explore! See which Phyrexian is right to lead your fellows into battle. Let me know what you think.
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