Evil Afoot: A Budget Persecutor Deck
Context: I'm new to Sorcery; this is my first deck. I wanted something aggressive and budget to get started and hopefully learn a lot. At the time of Writing (2026/10/22), very few cards should be over 5USD, if any.
Affinity Choice:
Earth and Fire have a lot of "hate on Evil" effects. Fire has a lot of mobile Evil minions, and Earth and Fire have cool "Holy" cards. So, mostly vibes.
Avatar:
Basically, the deck is built to take advantage of the "Mark as/Step to Evil" mechanic. Play mobile evil minions so that the Avatar can step across the board and smack the opponent in the face. Mark as Evil also gets around Ward because it does not target, which is nice. It guarantees that removal and the "are you Evil?" cards will always be on.
Minions:
The lower Mana Curve minions serve three functions:
The higher end Minions help control the board, or punish Evil. Simple really.
Spells:
A lot of the spells target Evil and disable or remove Evil.
Lava Flow and Poison Nova help control the board space. Day of Judgement is a pet choice; I love the way it looks and the flavor of the card.
Artifacts:
All artifact choices help the Persecutor, in some way. Flame of the First helps heal the Avatar as it moves.
The Rack adds additional life lose.
Sword and Shield, Arbalest, and Flaming Sword increase the damage output of the Persecutor.
Toolbox is for casting Landmass from the collection when I need more mana/threshold, but Persecutor needs to work slapping Evil. It's also for the catch-all Ordinary spells in the Collection.
Sites:
These card choices are where I am least confident, but they do have purpose. Most are what I can afford and help obtain threshold. Others have specific utility.
Dwarven Forge makes my Artifacts cheaper, which helps tremendously.
Boulevard of Bones, Open Grave, and Molten Maar allow more Evil to spawn in for the Persecutor to chase down for free.
Road to Perdition and Purgatory help punish those marked as Evil.
Cursed Land is to punish site-happy decks, but could bite me just as hard. Your mileage may vary on this Site.
Darkest Dungeon is for the meme, but also to potentially drag an enemy Avatar close to the Persecutor.
Collection:
Mostly the Collection is to play Hellhounds and Landmass from other effects mentioned above. This deck needs Evil to chase and Sites played without working for it.
I also included one-off Ordinary spells to hit problem sites, artifacts, cards in cemetery, and over-powered minions when I get a Toolbox out. These choices should be apparent to you when you read them.
Definitely Not in the Budget:
Feel free to add Archangel Michael, Sow the Earth, Balor of the Evil Eye, or your favorite choice of Competitive/Expensive card if you have them. I don't.
Key to the City would be excellent, if you have one. Ignoring Site effects is a great tool for a mobile Avatar.
Onyx/Ruby Core would help with Threshold and Mana because the Persecutor likes to attack more than play sites. This also applies to the Philosopher's Stone.
Mover of Mountains seems good as a cheap spellcaster and the ability to move empty, problem sites away, but my inexperience doesn't allow good insight on that.
Torrid Omphalos seems good as well, but I think the deck works well without it.
I'm not familiar with all of the Sorcery cards, so I am sure there are more choices that should go here.
Thank you for reading!