Demon Deck: How can I speed it up?

[Runestar]

Which do you feel is more important - a faster way of assembling your combo, or a means of delaying your opponent while you do? I don't think the deck has enough space to support a dedicated effort for both.

Earthquake is interesting. Nuke the board (and your deathrender-equipped mook), and bring in a demon on standby.

I am even wondering if the bloodspeakers are worth it. They seem quite overpriced and unwieldy, but promise great synergy with cards like intuition (search for 3 blood speakers, 2 go to graveyard, 1 goes to hand, play it, sac it and then return all 3 to your hand when you cast the demon) and buried alive+corpse dance (use buried alive to fill your graveyard with a demon and multiple bloodspeakers, reanimate the demon, which triggers bloodspeaker and returns them to your hand).

The demons also seem quite fragile. What alternative path to victory is there if the enemy has a way of offing them (say via wrath of god?)

I am still convinced that skull clamp is dead weight, and you don't really want/need 4 copies sneak attack, because the 1st one makes the rest redundant.

Also, if you want to make full use of deathrender, you may want a means of sacrificing your creature (like goblin bombardment) so you can quickly trade in a weenie for a demon.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My personal favorite thing to sacrifice creatures to- besides other creatures, of course- is Altar of Dementia.

http://magiccards.info/autocard.php?card=altar of dementia

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Planar Gate would help you cast the demons themselves, if that became an issue.

http://magiccards.info/lg/en/235.html

So would Stone Calendar.

http://magiccards.info/dk/en/108.html

And the considerably cheaper Jet Medallion.

http://magiccards.info/tp/en/282.html

And Helm of Awakening

http://magiccards.info/card.php?card=Helm of Awakening

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For speeding up the game, might I also suggest Fling?
http://magiccards.info/arena/en/36.html

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Consider adding Seizan to your deck, he's a relatively cheap demon (3BB) and a 6/5 to boot. Basically like 2 howling mines for everyone, but they also lose 2 life.

http://magiccards.info/chk/en/143.html

It seems like you need more early game critters, I'd take out the changelings and maybe some dark rituals and put 3-4 Soldevi Adnate in. Remember that she can sac herself in a pinch and you can get a whole lot of mileage out of Blood Speaker if it's not equipped to Death Render. Sac it to gain 4 black, summon your demon and then get it back to your hand

http://magiccards.info/ai/en/25.html

If you can afford it, Conspiracy is great with Rakdos and a lot of creatures, so you don't have to sac so many:

http://magiccards.info/mm/en/127.html

Consider putting in Nameless Inversion as control instead of Lightning Bolt, since you can find it with Blood Speaker and it triggers Bloodspeaker. Since your demons are beefy, if your opponent doesn't block it then you can use it to gain +3 damage:

http://magiccards.info/lw/en/128.html

Thran Turbine might be a wise choice if you stick with Death Render/Skull Clamp, it'll give you the mana you need to equip everything:

http://magiccards.info/us/en/311.html

And finally, good ol' Sengir Autocrat has fantastic synergy with Skull Clamp, and then the Soldevi Adnates can eat him up for 4 mana when you're done.

http://magiccards.info/5e/en/55.html

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another card to help you cast your Demons is Urza's Incubator:

http://magiccards.info/ud/en/142.html

And another- Quicksilver Amulet:

http://magiccards.info/ul/en/130.html