It's important to remember that most of the demons I am running are performing double-duty and act as removal themselves. Reiver Demon, Kagemaro, Carnifex Demon, and others can clear out pesky creatures and often do.
Removal basically falls into two camps. Spells that take out a specific creature and spells that take out a bunch of creatures. Black has plenty of spells that take out a bunch of creatures. The problem is that it usually takes out your creatures, too. Plus, it slows the game down. People usually get frowny after you wipe the board three or four times. So, if I'm going to go for mass removal, I try to make sure that it is as one-sided as possible or leaves a creature behind to go in for the kill.
Mass removal includes: Damnation, Decree of Pain, Black Sun's Zenith, Infest, and Hellfire. With the exception of Damnation, every other mass removal spell will leave most of my big demons alone or weakened, but alive. If I have to go full blast on Decree of Pain, it usually means that I end up with a grip of cards to break through whatever my opponents throw at me. Otherwise, it gets cycled. Hellfire is probably better as Mutilate, but Hellfire is in-theme so I run it instead.
Spot removal includes: Rend Flesh, Bone Shredder, Murder, Corrupt, Profane Command, Dismember, Consuming Vapors, and Grasp of Darkness. Rend Flesh, Murder, and Bone Shredder (to a lesser extent) allow me to kill just about anything I can target that isn't indestructible. The other players in my group are wise to this, so Darksteel Plate has become popular. For that, I run Grasp of Darkness, Dismember, and Profane Command. Consuming Vapors has a good chance to hit something big if I set things up right and gives me a two-for-one with some life gain. Profane Command and Corrupt give me options.
There is an entire other removal suite that involves causing sacrifices. It's gets around some of the issues with untargetable or indestructible creature, but I usually find it to be too random. Consuming vapors is the exception. Or, Nefarox, but his ability is just icing on the cake. This is a good overall amount of removal, a good mix of removal, and it covers most of the issues that I have with creatures that I run into during a game.
Rend Flesh, Murder, Dismember, and Grasp of Darkness are all instants. So, you can hold them to screw up your opponents' combat math. Otherwise, you cast mass removal on your turn so it's important that it doesn't simply kill everything. I am usually just trying to break up a wall of creatures so that I can get in a few more points of damage.
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