Killing your own creatures seems like an undesirable thing for many newer Magic players. Why should you want to kill your blockers? However, to veterans, a sacrifice outlet is always a welcome thing. Abusing effects that trigger off of creatures dying or just getting cards in the graveyard is a huge deal, especially in Modern. Graveyard strategies reign supreme there, and now they get a boost with a card that was only legal in Legacy: Altar of Dementia, another of the Magic: The Gathering Modern Horizons spoilers.
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Breakdown
For 2 mana, Altar of Dementia gives you an instant speed sacrifice outlet. When you kill a creature with it, you can mill a player for cards equal to the power of the killed creature. This effect is simple, yet ripe for abuse. The biggest question is — how will players use the card? If you can continuously bring a creature back from the graveyard for free, you can mill your opponent out infinitely. This could be achieved with Vizier of Remedies and any creature with Persist (such as Kitchen Finks or Glen Elendra Archmage). I’m sure there’s some sort of artifact/eggs shell that could abuse this too, with cards like Scrap Trawler.
Another option could be having it slotted into a self-sacrificing deck to mill yourself. Turn one Stitcher’s Supplier into turn two Altar of Dementia, sacrifice seems like a super sweet way to mill yourself for seven cards. Especially if those cards are Bloodghasts, Vengevines, or Bridge from Below.
As for existing decks that can play Altar of Dementia, Dredge could make room for it. Being able to sacrifice your creatures that can come back from the graveyard is a sweet deal. It can easily spiral out of control, with one Bloodghast quickly becoming an army of Prized Amalgams.
What do you think about Altar of Dementia? Is there a sweet deck you want to try it in, or a sweet infinite combo for Modern we missed? Let us know down in the comments below!
