The Malevolent Assembly

Avatar: Interrogator

Thresholds: Fire / Air (with heavy Shadow flavor via demons & pressure)

Archetype: Midrange Control → Demonic Attrition

Gameplan: Bleed them out, tax their options, and let fear do the rest.

Core Strategy

The Malevolent Assembly is a deck that wins by constant pressure, inevitability, and relentless board pressure. Corner them, force bad trades, strip options, and then drop demons that demand answers they no longer have. Between The Rack, Demonic Contract, and high-impact demons, your opponent is constantly choosing between bad and worse.

Early Game (Turns 1–3): Establish Control

The early game is about setup and irritation, not damage races.

Key Goals:

Develop sites safely
Apply annoying, sticky pressure

Key Cards:

Vile Imp – Early blocker, early chip damage, annoying to remove
Quarrelsome Kobolds – Efficient board presence, excellent tempo tool
War Horse / Stagecoach – Mobility matters; positioning wins games
Ferryman’s Coin – Quietly enables explosive turns later
Summoning Sphere – Sets up demon sequencing and midgame dominance

You’re perfectly happy trading early bodies or forcing inefficient removal. If they stumble even slightly, you’re ahead.

Mid Game (Turns 4–6): The Clamp Tightens

This is where the deck really comes online.

Board Pressure:

Barging Barghest, Sturmgeist & Mazuj Ifrit dominate lanes
Monstrous Lion, Sir Balin, Sir Lamorak control combat
Earl of the Ivory Towers stabilizes and pressures simultaneously

Disruption & Punishment:

The Rack – Brutal with Interrogator
Demonic Contract – You’re built to leverage it, not fear it. With any Unique demon out Blaze of Glory is an all star to tutor.
Grapple Shot / Whirling Blades – Clean answers that maintain tempo
Infiltrate – Breaks board stalls and steals positioning wins

Late Game (Turns 7+): Damnation Arrives

If the game goes long, it heavily favors you.

Finishers & Endgame Engines:

Balor of the Evil Eye – Board-warping presence
Lord of Fear – Turns pressure into inevitability
Lord of Destruction - Great late game removal & puts your opponent way behind.
Mephistopheles – Play a big evil minion for free and knock em out with a grapple shot or Whirling blades.
Asmodeus - Knock out that annoying site with lots of minions or artifacts (hopefully their Avatar's site or any Omphalos)
Nimbus Jinn - If you've managed to draw a few extra cards & have a summoning sphere this is still one of the best combos in Sorcery.

Mulligan Tips

Strong openers usually include:

2–3 playable sites
At least one early minion (Imp, Kobolds, Horse)
Either Summoning Sphere, Ferryman’s Coin, or early interaction

Hands that are all demons and no setup should usually be shipped.

Collection

The deck runs two copies of Toolbox to enable explosive, high-impact turns, most often to power out a clutch Grapple Shot or Spin Attack that completely shifts the board state in your favor.

Alongside Toolbox, the Collection includes a compact but flexible removal package designed to answer anything that becomes a problem on board.

Key Tools:

Just a Rock – Simple, efficient, and always relevant
Disenchant – Clean answers to problematic artifacts and enchantments
Hamlet’s Ablaze! – removal for annoying sites such as Troll bridge, Thin ice, Briar patch, Gnome hollows OR mess with their threshold value.

ZAP EM AT DEATH'S DOOR YA FILTHY ANIMAL!!

ENJOY, Have fun & as always CONTEST THE REALM!!

The Malevolent Assembly

@LizzardWizz