One of the coolest cards in Magic Origins is Demonic Pact. Before the rotation, we saw it get played with cards like Invasive Species and Silumgar's Command, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen anyone try something similar in the new Standard format. Crush of Tentacles might be the card to change things for Demonic Pact, and this awesome build by Tulio_Jaudy from the MOCS may be the best place to start:

U/B Demonic Pact ? Oath of the Gatewatch Standard | Tulio_Jaudy, 28th Place Magic Online Championship Series

• Spells (34)
• 1 Empty the Pits
• 2 Anticipate
• 2 Dig Through Time
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Disperse
• 2 Grasp of Darkness
• 3 Silumgar's Command
• 1 Treasure Cruise
• 2 Crush of Tentacles
• 2 Ruinous Path
• 4 Duress
• 4 Transgress the Mind
• 3 Oath of Jace
• 4 Demonic Pact

• Lands (26)
• 4 Island
• 5 Swamp
• 2 Sunken Hollow
• 3 Dismal Backwater
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Flaying Tendrils
• 2 Infinite Obliteration
• 2 Languish
• 2 Negate
• 2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1 Shifting Loyalties
• 2 Ultimate Price

Buy This Deck

The combination of Crush of Tentacles and permanent-based sources of card advantage is an awesome interaction, and one I wish we saw more of in the new Standard. Between Oath of Jace and Demonic Pact, there are plenty of cards this deck is happy to rebuy for additional value. Between Disperse, Silumgar's Command, and Crush of Tentacles, the deck does not lack ways to rebuy Demonic Pact.

Particularly important is Crush’s ability to pick up all of your Pacts at once, since it allows you to cast multiple Pacts without being afraid of finding a way to bounce each of them individually. Consequently you don’t really need alternate ways to win the game, since you can aggressively use Pacts to drain your opponent out.

Part of the reason this deck is so powerful is the density of cheap ways to ensure that your Crushes resolve. Between Duress, Transgress the Mind, and Dispel, it’s not especially difficult to clear the way, especially when those efficient spells are backed by the raw power of Demonic Pact helping to find the copies you need and clear your opponent’s hand of relevant interaction.

The combination of efficient interactive spells like Duress and Grasp of Darkness backed by powerful card advantage engines like Dig Through Time and Demonic Pact is a tried and true method for building a deck capable of holding its own against the format. This deck may struggle against the more aggressive decks in the format, but there are plenty of ways to tweak the deck to gain some points in those match ups. All told, the deck is really exciting, and has all the efficient interaction necessary to make sure you can deploy your powerful card advantage engines. I don’t know if we’ll see a ton of this permanent-based style of control deck, but I’d certainly like it if Demonic Pact made a big comeback.